


The Ouroboros Mark

by Wolf_of_Lilacs



Series: femHarrymort/Tomarry [7]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, F/M, Female Harry Potter, Female Voldemort, Horcruxes, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Requisite Dramatic Irony, Semi-Scientific Approach to Soulmates, What's a Harrymort soulmate au without it?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-27
Updated: 2019-02-27
Packaged: 2019-06-17 12:45:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 25,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15461673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolf_of_Lilacs/pseuds/Wolf_of_Lilacs
Summary: And beside her, tenderly holding her hand, both their wrists bare…Her soulmate, taller, older, many things more than she, black hair falling past her shoulders, face impossible to see.Harriet reaches out to touch, but it is only a mirror.-In a world where soulmates are unlikely to meet yet soulmarks are kept hidden, Harriet Potter and Lord Voldemort must clumsily wend their way. For all their efforts, one truth remains: soulmates were never meant to share souls





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Betaed by the wonderful RedHorse.

The world will soon be hers, and she knows it. Strike your greatest enemy down where it lies swaddled in its mother's arms, tear the last scrap of hope from your opposition's gaping, foaming mouths. (Ah, yes. Rabid dogs. An apt metaphor.) She is Goddess and Destroying Angel in one, and this is the night of her Ascension.

 

Down the quaintly cobbled street, past Muggle children dressed as creatures in which they do not believe. "Nice costume," one tells her through a mouthful of sweets. She ignores it, draws her hood close about her face, and continues her swift pace.

 

The cottage she has spent so many months searching for is only too visible, the lamb's blood scrubbed from above its door by an erstwhile friend. Traitors are a wonderful thing, when they serve your purposes—after which they should be disposed of with due haste. (Poor, foolish, fearful boy. But the end he will meet at her hand would be swift. Never let it be said that Lord Voldemort knows not kindness.)

 

With barely a flick of her wand, the front door explodes inward in a satisfying cascade of splintered wood. James Potter cries out, shouting a useless warning and a more useless suggestion to his wife. His death is quick; Voldemort isn't here for him, has no need to gloat (what is another incidental death in her long tally?).

 

Nor is she here for Lily Evans, a worthy opponent for a Mudblood. Lily dies easily, too, though with much pleading—for her daughter's life only, caring little for her own. True, the Snape boy had begged for her to be spared, but Voldemort's capacity for fools in love with one to whom they are not bound is limited.

 

Voldemort is here for the Potters' first born, the baby in the crib. But as Lily falls and she moves farther into the room, she feels—

 

Pain.

 

The child gazes at her with wide green eyes, more vivid than those of her mother, her lower lip beginning to tremble as she curls in on herself. Does she know that her mother is dead, or is there something more? Does she have an inkling that her life—so short, so necessarily wasted—is forfeit?

 

Voldemort takes the girl in, but it is distant and blurred for the pain.

 

(A part of her long-buried suspects the pain's meaning and the cause of the child's curling. But she grits her teeth, ignores this weakness of flesh, does not touch…)

 

She raises her wand and casts the curse. In the split second it takes for the acid-green light to reach the girl, she sees a new shape upon her own wrist—

 

But then the curse has found its mark, and her world shatters in a burst of agony like nothing she has ever known. The last thing she is truly aware of for nigh on a decade is the girl, warm and distant—yet so very close—and crying.

 

*

 

Harriet Potter isn't really a normal girl. For one thing, she's always known she'd met her soulmate.

 

It isn't some silly fantasy like all the good little boys and girls have, as they finger the raised marks on their wrists, trying to see the half-formed shapes as whole.

 

Harriet isn't one of them. They never let her join their games or their daydreaming on the playground, and call her a freak—thanks be to the efforts of her dear cousin—and chase her if she tries. Instead, she's relegated to sitting on a low stone wall, kicking her feet, and hoping no one will take notice.

 

They usually don't, when she's quiet and doesn't want to be found.

 

But if anyone ever wanted Harriet's opinion on her mark, then she thinks it looks a bit like a snake trying to swallow its own tail (which is an odd thing for a snake to be doing, but maybe it means something else). It's a pleasant, faded gold in color, and Harriet finds it quite pretty.

 

She asks Dudley once what he thinks, during one of those rare moments when he's being civil. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon are arguing loudly and therefore pay them no attention. "I dunno. It's freaky just like you." Then he ruins the calm exchange by punching her extra hard, possibly out of misplaced cousinly affection. She really should have expected it.

 

Aunt Petunia is no better. "That's a half-mark like everyone has. Why would you be special?" Her hand reflexively twists the ribbon covering her mark, which Harriet has never caught even a glimpse of. It could be a whole mark for all Harriet knows, but it definitely doesn't match Uncle Vernon's poorly-hidden half-mark.

 

"What is your—?” Harriet asks before she can think her question through.

 

"Never you mind, and don't ask questions!" And so Harriet spends the rest of the afternoon in her spider-infested cupboard, her only supper whatever she gleans from the wonderful smells that waft in from the kitchen. (She supplements them with a small stockpile of tangible food, an apple and a few crackers the Dursleys won't miss.)

 

Whole mark or no, Harriet never feels her soulmate, never gets the flashes of emotion that are supposed to accompany a completed bond. But that's all right, she assures herself. Her soulmate's out there, somewhere. They could be hurt or sick or just too far away to be felt. Or maybe…

 

Maybe the bond has never been completed. She's met her soulmate, but they did not touch.

 

(Her earliest memory is pain and a lot of green light. It's from the car crash that killed her parents, a beleaguered Petunia told her once.)

 

"Get back to weeding those roses, girl!" her uncle shouts from the sitting room window. "Stop your namby-pamby daydreaming." He ostentatiously checks his watch. "Time is money, they say, and all you do is waste it."

 

Sometimes, she fantasizes about her soulmate swooping in to rescue her from this place. Most little girls don't sleep in cupboards and do all the Saturday chores by themselves, at least the ones she knows from school don't talk about any of that. Why does she?

 

("You're a freak!" her uncle shouts as he slams and locks the cupboard door for another tiny offense.)

 

Right. The other reason she isn't normal: Strange, inexplicable things happen around her. One of the times Dudley and his friends chased her at school, she ended up on the chimney by the kitchens. She said she flew and didn't know how—maybe there'd been a localized gust of wind. The headmistress said she'd climbed—deliberately defacing school property—and called Petunia. Naturally, they'd thrown her in her cupboard for the weekend and didn't feed her again till Monday.

 

Another time, a few older boys cornered her and threatened to do… things to her. She'd gotten away. They ended up in hospital, bruised and bleeding from a multitude of rocks that had attacked them. Harriet didn't know how that happened, either, but she knew they deserved it.

 

Her soulmate won't mind her being a freak, will they?

 

Interesting things start happening the summer she turns eleven. There's the incident at the zoo on Dudley's birthday with the snake whose deepest desire is to go to Brazil. (Can she talk to it because of the shape of her mark?)

 

And then there are the letters addressed to her that come just before her birthday, which cause mass hysteria in the household, and they all end up shivering in a shack by the sea. It's the first vacation they've ever taken her on, and for once she isn't the only one that's miserable.

 

Curled up under a thin, moldy blanket on the splintery floor, Harriet wonders somewhat giddily what her soulmate might think. Surely they'd find outrunning mysterious letters as exciting as she does. But maybe they're used to full meals and don't like being cold and wet (not that Harriet does, either); they would hate this adventure, then.

 

The large, wild-haired man that breaks down the door at the precise moment Dudley's watch shows midnight—therefore exactly when she goes from being ten to eleven—explains things she didn't know had explanations. "Your parents, die in a car crash? A car crash, kill Lily and James Potter? No, no! They were killed by… I can't say it."

 

"Could you write it down?" she asks kindly, charmed by Hagrid's gruff sincerity.

 

"Nah, can't spell it. All right: Voldemort. Worst dark witch in centuries… worse than any dark wizard, too."

 

Is magic different for witches and wizards? Instead, she asks rather inanely, "Did she have a soulmate?"

 

Hagrid shudders. "Don't think so. Can't imagine it would've been pretty if she had. Not that soulmates are a big deal and all, but she would have found a way to do something mighty terrible with hers." Harriet feels a savage sort of satisfaction at this. Her parents' murderer didn't have a soulmate, but Harriet, who had survived her curse, does.

 

"So, where do we find magic books and wands and stuff?" Harriet asks, after the Dursleys (plus extra pig's tail) have made a dramatic exit.

 

"Oh, here and there," Hagrid replies with a wink.

 

"Here and there" is apparently a small pub with a rusty sign that none of the people rushing past can see. "This is it?" Harriet asks dubiously. Hagrid just smiles.

 

The Leaky Cauldron is full of pipe smoke and happy chatter and the smell of fried meat. As they enter, Harriet thinks she feels something. A prickle at her scar, maybe. She turns her head, confused. She's being watched by absolutely everyone (because she's the Girl Who Lived, for whatever it's really worth), but this sensation isn't quite like that. Almost… deeper.

 

"This here is Professor Quirrell, who'll be teaching you Defense," Hagrid says jovially, introducing a nervous-looking young man.

 

"P-Pleasure, Miss P-P-Potter," he stammers.

 

She nods mutely. He is the source of the phantom feeling. She does not shake his hand. It feels wrong, somehow. Too forward, too soon. Quirrell doesn't appear to mind, stuttering out a final howdy-do before scuttling back into the refuge of the crowd.

 

He is not her soulmate. He's just strange.

 

The Dursleys drop her off at King's Cross grudgingly. Vernon glowers and says, "Good riddance." Petunia clucks her tongue. Dudley clutches his bottom where his pig's tail still resides; they're taking him to have it removed today. Harriet wonders idly what they've told the surgeon.

 

Aboard the Hogwarts Express, Ron Weasley—the gangly red-haired boy who awkwardly barged into her compartment—asks to see her scar. Then he asks about her soulmark.

 

"I don't know who my soulmate is," she tells him, leaving her ragged ribbon exactly where it is. She wants to blend in, and revealing a whole mark won't help her.

 

"Me neither, mate," he says brightly, showing her a half-mark as obscure as any others she's seen.

 

"Half a broom, maybe?" she guesses.

 

"That's what I thought, too," he replies, grinning. "Could be a Chudley Cannons player…" He gazes off dreamily.

 

Their door is pushed open by a bushy-haired girl. "Have you seen a toad? Neville's lost one."

 

"No," Ron mutters. "We already told him."

 

"Oh, are you talking about soulmates?" she asks, catching sight of Ron's exposed wrist. "It's statistically impossible that you'll ever find one. I know literally one pair, and they say knowing each other is the most anti-climactic thing that's ever happened to them." After this, she turns to upcoming coursework, and both Ron and Harriet are overwhelmed. Ron looks a bit piqued.

 

"My mum and dad are soulmates," he says sourly. "And Fred and George, my twin brothers. You don't know what you're talking about."

 

Hermione tosses her head. "Oh, I'm so sorry. But that's really rare. Are soulmates more common with wizards?"

 

"Don’t know," he replies, somewhat appeased. "Could be."

 

"Well, I'm going to continue looking for Neville's toad. Nice to meet both of you." Hermione leaves as brusquely as she arrived.

 

The compartment door is opened again while they're eating chocolate frogs. "I heard Harriet Potter was on this train," the narrow-faced boy whose unfortunate acquaintance Harriet made in the robe shop says. "So it's you, is it?"

 

"Piss off," Ron snaps.

 

"It is me," Harriet says. "Disappointed?"

 

Malfoy eyes her uneven hair and ill-fitting Muggle clothes. "I shouldn't be surprised," he drawls. "The Girl Who Lived was raised by Muggles. What a drag." He offers his hand for her to shake anyway. "I could help you find real friends, far better than Weasley here, and give you some class while I'm at it."

 

"I'm fine, thanks." Ron beams. Harriet feels pretty great.

 

When the severe and weirdly compelling Professor McGonagall drops the Sorting Hat over Harriet's head, she thinks repeatedly, _Not Slytherin, not Slytherin._

 

_Not Slytherin, eh? You could be great, you know. Slytherin could help you on your way to greatness. Your mark there proves it._

 

 _You know, then_ , Harriet thinks. _You know who…_

 

 _I could tell you_ , the Sorting Hat whispers, _if you go to Slytherin._

 

She's being blackmailed by a talking hat. She weighs her response, but in the end decides the name of her soulmate—who she may never find anyway—isn't worth seven years of Malfoy.

 

 _I stand by what I said_ , the Hat says in disappointment, _but a choice like that puts you nowhere but_ "GRYFFINDOR!"

 

There are cheers and shouts of "We got Potter! We got Potter!" and Harriet feels that she couldn't have chosen better.

 

She's even more certain after their first Potions lesson.

 

"Harriet Potter… our new celebrity." Professor Snape drew her name out like a malediction, his unfathomable black eyes flashing in malice.

 

A string of questions that she doesn't know the answers to follows. What did she do to deserve this? She'd read her books, or she thought she had. Professor Snape had never met her. What could she possibly have done to make him hate her so much?

 

"He was awful to you," Hermione says later in their dorm. "Teachers shouldn't be able to get away with behavior like that!"

 

"I bet people have complained before," Harriet replies bitterly. "Favoritism is expected here." Just like at her Muggle school. No one would believe her about anything.

 

The term continues apace. The novelty of the Girl Who Lived dies down somewhat, and the whispers as she walks the corridors fade.

 

She loves Hogwarts, really. Well, other than Snape. And Quirrell, whose lessons are boring and hard to follow (he's added a striking purple turban since she first met him, but a foul smell hangs about it). And Malfoy's insistent tormenting. But he's nothing compared to Dudley and his gang, and she gives as good as she gets.

 

She does not like the troll at Halloween that nearly kills her and Hermione when Harriet's comforting her in the bathroom and Ron shuts it in with them. He realizes what he's done quickly enough, and they knock it out between the three of them, but it's terrifying (and exhilarating).

 

And then there's that first Quidditch match, during which she almost dies when someone curses her broom, although in hindsight it was a thrilling ride. Ron and Hermione say it's Snape. Hagrid disagrees. Harriet knows Snape hates her—how can she not, with reminders every lesson?—but still thinks something is a little off. But this is forgotten when they delve into the mystery of the Philosopher's Stone so tantalizingly placed before them.

 

There is little talk of soulmates now. Only a Hufflepuff first-year finds hers, a Ravenclaw third year. Harriet doesn't know either of them. Why discuss what may never happen? Why admit how fervently she hopes?

 

The Christmas holidays are cold and quiet. She and Ron spend their days in the common room. "We should be researching the Philosopher's Stone," Harriet protests after their seventh consecutive game of Gobstones-chess (Gobstones played using reluctant, orphaned chess pieces).

 

"We'll get to it," Ron says easily, giving a distraught, utterly drenched bishop a comforting tap.

 

Harriet receives actual presents on Christmas for the first time she can remember. She runs down to the common room, shouting for Ron. "I got presents, Ron!"

 

"Well, what else did you expect?" he wonders, trailing wrapping paper down the boys' stairs.

 

One of her presents has no name attached, but it belonged to her dad, and she hardly cares who sent it.

 

"I think that's an Invisibility Cloak!" Ron notes. "They're rare. Where did your dad get it, do you think?"

 

"No idea."

 

She takes the Cloak out for a test run that night. The corridors are eerie. She casts no shadow. A book in the Restricted Section screams when she opens it, and she flees the scene and ends up in an unused classroom.

 

Unused, but not quite empty. A mirror is propped against the wall, with an inscription she cannot understand and—

 

Harriet stares at her reflection, letting the Cloak puddle at her feet in her shock. The castle is chilly at night, but she is so captivated by what she sees that she no longer notices.

 

At her shoulders stand a man and woman. The man has wild black hair just like hers, the woman has Harriet's eyes. They can only be her parents. Surrounding them are others that share her features—a family now deceased that she will never know.

 

And beside her, tenderly holding her hand, both their wrists bare…

 

Her soulmate, taller, older, many things more than she, black hair falling past her shoulders, face impossible to see.

 

Harriet reaches out to touch, but it is only a mirror.

 

Ron comes with her the next night. "I see me, mate," he says. "I'm holding the Quidditch Cup and the House Cup, and I'm Head Boy! You think this mirror shows the future?" He gets a little wistful. "No soulmate, though. Guess Hermione's right about them."

 

"I guess." But there is no future in this mirror for her.

 

The next night, when she returns to the mirror to press her fingers against the glass and wish to fall through, a quiet cough startles her.

 

"Back again?"

 

She spins around, her heart in her throat. Eccentrically-robed Professor Dumbledore sits serenely on a desk. He will throw her out, take points, bring the ire of her Housemates down upon her.

 

"You aren't in trouble, dear girl. Many far greater than you have wasted away in front of this mirror."

 

"Have many seen it, sir?" She knows nothing about magical mirrors, has no idea of their ubiquity or rarity.

 

"Enough," Dumbledore says heavily. "And do you understand what it does?"

 

"It shows you things you may never have." Her family was dead, her soulmate far away.

 

"For most of us," he says, "that is very true. Our hearts' deepest desires are flighty, unlikely things."

 

Her eyes sting. She doesn't ask him what he sees. He would not be truthful.

 

*

 

"I checked out this book from the library ages ago for some light reading, and it has exactly what we've been looking for!" Hermione drops a heavy tome onto the table before Harriet and Ron and points to a passage near the middle. "See? Nicolas Flamel, the Philosopher's Stone, all right here."

 

"Aww, Hermione, we could have figured this out ages ago," Harriet laments. "Except that maybe we're better off not knowing." Now, they knew what sort of person to fear. (She thinks of her uncle, who would kill for endless wealth.)

 

"Ignorance is bliss?" Hermione asks caustically. "No, Harriet. It's always better to know."

 

Months pass with incident aplenty. The Quidditch match against Hufflepuff is followed by a conversation deliberately eavesdropped upon that produces more questions than it answers. "I'm telling you, Snape is an evil git!" Ron says. "Quirrell's the last thing between him and the Stone."

 

"He's awful, Ron," Hermione cautions. "That doesn't mean he's after the Stone."

 

"But Harriet said—"

 

Harriet leaves them to argue and goes to visit Hedwig in the Owlery.

 

*

 

"I c-can't do it, Master. Severus won't help—" Quirrell sounds like he's nearly in tears. Harriet, knowing better to interfere with adults' affairs since the debacle with Hagrid's dragon and Malfoy, tries to skulk away. She hears the rest, despite her best efforts. "Yes," Quirrell sobs. "I'll s-send a note and t-try again."

 

What sort of note?

 

She doesn't have long to wait. After their end-of-year exams, Dumbledore leaves the school for some sort of dire emergency, and Harriet's scar throbs.

 

"Time to kick Snape's arse," Ron announces nervously. And through the trapdoor they go.

 

Someone is waiting beyond the fire. Harriet knows before she walks through. She takes deep, unsatisfying breaths. "Good luck," Hermione says, her lower lip trembling, giving Harriet a tight hug before reluctantly going off to help the injured Ron. Harriet steps forward. The dark flames should devour her, but Hermione's deduction was correct.

 

"Ah, there you are, Potter." Professor Quirrell turns, expectant. Harriet remembers the weight of his stare, the inexplicable one-sided conversation, his inconsistent skittishness. They were indeed wrong to assume Snape, and she is utterly unsurprised.

 

Beyond these thoughts, there is pain. Her forehead smarts. "I'm here to s-stop you," she stammers bravely, but how can an untrained child hope to be more than a nuisance to a fully-qualified wizard?

 

Quirrell clearly has the same thought. "Rather silly of you to come here, if you ask me." He ties her up with a casual spell, then goes back to examining the towering, claw-footed mirror—the one from the classroom—that stands at the end of the chamber. "Now, how do I get the Stone? Must I break the mirror? Is it hidden inside?" He circles in frustration, while Harriet tests the strength of her bonds. There's no way she can slip free. Quirrell, reaching the end of his patience, pleads, "Master, help me!"

 

And to Harriet's horror, someone responds. "Use the girl." A high, hoarse hiss. Harriet recognizes it as the source of the high-pitched laugh of her nightmares, but can't quite put a name to it—

 

The ropes unravel and Quirrell pushes her in front of the mirror. Her family is gone. Instead, she sees herself standing only with the dark-haired woman with blurred features. A red stone gleams in the woman's hand. She slips it into Harriet's pocket and winks. Harriet feels a weight against her thigh, shocked—

 

"Well, what do you see?" Quirrell snaps.

 

"I see my soulmate," she replies instantly. "I… They don't have a face." She does not reach a hand into her pocket. What must be the Philosopher's Stone is cold.

 

A heavy pause. Then—

 

"She does not lie, but I wonder…" Harriet's dread peaks. "Let me speak to her, face to face."

 

"But you are not strong enough," Quirrell protests.

 

"Do not dare presume, Quirrell."

 

"Yes, Lord," Quirrell says sullenly and begins unwinding his turban, his hands shaking.

 

No, don't! But too late. The turban falls to the floor, and Quirrell turns his back on her.

 

Harriet cannot look away from the face that is inexplicably on the back of his head. Eyes the color of fresh blood; slitted pupils; oddly genteel mouth. "Clever girl, but we both know there's more, hmm?"

 

Harriet can't speak, her tongue stuck fast. No, no!

 

"Give me the Stone in your pocket, child. We could use it to bring your parents back. Barring that, we could find your faceless soulmate."

 

"Liar!" Harriet chokes.

 

Quirrell backs closer. _She_ seems to take control of one of his hands, reaching out to almost touch Harriet's cheek. The pain that has been constant since she entered the chamber flares brighter, and suddenly Harriet is looking at herself from _her_ eyes, sees a tiny girl with eyes thrown wide and bloodless cheeks and no hope of winning.

 

Harriet snaps back to herself, gasping. "What?"

 

"Get the Stone, Quirrell," _she_ says, bored. "We're running out of time. Dumbledore has likely already realized his error." Quirrell lunges, grasping at her pocket. Harriet latches onto his wrist, and he howls in pain. "Master! I cannot touch her bare skin!"

 

"Take it! Kill her! She's had ten more years than she ought!" _she_ shrieks. Harriet, now with a tiny shred of hope, grabs for Quirrell's face. He writhes, screaming. She doesn't let go—

 

"Harriet! Harriet!" Quirrell is wrenched from her grip, something swoops past her trailing agony, and she falls into darkness.

 

*

 

"What did all the pain mean, professor?" Harriet asks Dumbledore as he sits by her hospital bed, twiddling his thumbs and looking quite relaxed.

 

"A connection between you," he says, "formed when Voldemort failed to kill you when you were a baby."

 

"But that makes it sound like we're soulma—"

 

His serenity sharpens into pity. "Perhaps you are. May I see your mark?"

 

Suddenly faced with the knowledge she so craves, Harriet doesn't want it, wants to put it off for as long as she can. "No," she says, fiddling with her ribbon.

 

Dumbledore nods, a sympathetic sort of understanding in his eyes. "The truth is a beautiful and terrible thing," he murmurs. "It should be treated with care. You cannot deny it forever, dear girl."

 

"I know that," she says petulantly, burying her face in her pillows.

 

When she's out of the hospital wing, she tells Ron and Hermione nothing of her conversation with Dumbledore. They're too busy with their usual brand of comfortable bickering to take much notice. She loves them for that, a bit.

 

"Next year'll be just as exciting as this one," Ron says fondly, looking around the red-and-gold-adorned Great Hall during the Leaving Feast.

 

"God, I hope not," Harriet and Hermione say together.

 

"I'm sure there are other less terrifying ways to win the House Cup," Harriet adds.

 

Ron rolls his eyes. "What kind of a Gryffindor are you?" he asks, grinning.

 

A cowardly one, Harriet thinks ruefully. For when faced with the prospect of Voldemort as her soulmate, she ran from it.

 

(She stops dreaming.)

 

Back to Privet Drive she goes: back to its uniform flowerbeds and its blank hostility; back to her secondhand clothes and her castoff bedroom; back to Petunia's bitterly kept secrets and Vernon's blustery intimidation.

 

"I'll write you," Ron promises.

 

"I could call you," Hermione suggests. Harriet recommends against it, but gives her the Dursleys' phone number anyway.

 

How strange, having friends. She could get used to it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many, many thanks to RedHorse, who patiently corrected silly typos and made brilliant recommendations that improved this chapter exponentially.

Voldemort is alone again.

 

Or more accurately, she is alone and aware of her isolation. Before, it had been uncountable days of urge and not-pain and not-quite-thought; she can give words to it now, but never could then.

 

There was a change, she recalls, mere days before Quirrell's timely arrival, when a semblance of awareness trickled back to her from somewhere unknown. She still doesnt quite understand what caused it. And in her first moments of consciousness, she had cried out—as much as a voiceless wraith could cry out—and someone had come.

 

_Help._

 

Yet here she is once more, precisely where she started, leeching the life force from one small animal after the next—never enough to satisfy her aching emptiness.

 

(Perhaps nothing ever would be, and she, the Dark Lord Voldemort, would languish here, forgotten. And all because of one lucky little girl.)

 

_Help._

 

How long must she wait, this time?

 

*

 

It's midafternoon on Harriet's twelfth birthday when the doorbell rings. Harriet is pulling weeds in the backyard, having just seen a strange pair of green eyes through the hedge and terrorized Dudley in repayment for all the years he’s terrorized her. So, in other words, it's pretty much a day like any other. Although maybe a bit hotter than usual. And her hands don't hurt too much; she's formed some thick calluses since the start of the holidays.

 

"Get in here, girl!"

 

"Ooh, what did you do now?" Dudley taunts from a safe distance, seemingly forgetting his fear in the face of her potential punishment.

 

"Hocus pocus," she replies. It's a genuine answer, but he runs off with a shrill little scream anyway. She can't help her smirk.

 

Harriet goes inside, wiping the excess dirt from her hands on the legs of her threadbare jeans—her least awful pair. The doorbell won't have rung for her, but Petunia never wants her to be seen, especially not when she's got dirt caked beneath her bitten-off fingernails. Who could their unexpected guest possibly be?

 

"Hermione?" Harriet says blankly.

 

"You never responded to our letters," Hermione explains. "And when I tried calling…" She trails away. Harriet can guess only too easily what the result must have been.

 

"So I convinced my mum to come and check on you," Hermione finishes. "And that we should go out for your birthday."

 

"We weren't stopping you from receiving letters," Petunia mutters, her eyes narrowing.

 

No, just from sending them. But Harriet doesn't want to invite her uncle's wrath later by slipping up now, so she keeps this rebellious thought to herself. "I know that," she says aloud. "I thought no one sent any." It was a painful conclusion, but not without precedent from her occasional fruitless attempts at friendship in primary school.

 

"Oh, I've sent a few," Hermione assures her. "So has Ron. I told him to hold off on sending your birthday present until we figured out what was wrong."

 

Hermione's mum—a taller, mirror image of Hermione—is studying the Dursleys' sitting room with a critical eye. "I don't mean to pry," she says, "but why is your niece not in any of these pictures?" Every one of them shows Dudley in various poses. Harriet knows for a fact all appearances of enjoyment are fake, just so he could get anything he asked for afterward. He confessed as much to her once, after he'd gotten two extra scoops of ice cream at a waterpark. Then he'd knocked her glasses off, snapping the frames—again.

 

"Not a bit photogenic," Petunia replies tensely. It's probably true, but they'd never tried including Harriet in any photos to know for certain.

 

"Hmm." Mrs. Granger purses her lips. "Well, would it be all right if we took Harriet out for the day? I suppose you have plans for tonight."

 

"We do," Petunia confirms. She, of course, is referring to the party being put on for Vernon's wealthy business associates. Let Mrs. Granger interpret it as she will.

 

"Of course. We'll have her back by six."

 

What is Harriet hearing? She's going out? For her birthday? And Petunia is—

 

"Fine." Petunia pins Harriet with a hard gaze. "Have a good time," she intones flatly.

 

"I… I expect I will, thank you."

 

"Go wash your hands first. They're filthy." Harriet scampers off to comply. She can feel Hermione's and Mrs. Granger's eyes on her back. They're doubtless thinking that her hands are covered in dirt because she was playing outside; that's what children do on long summer days, after all.

 

As Harriet eats lunch—a proper one, so much better than the slices of bread and cheese Petunia gave her—she can hardly believe her luck. She'd never come to this bakery with the Dursleys when they'd brought Dudley, and it's as wonderful as she dreamed—late on nights when she'd been sent to bed without supper and hadn't stolen quite enough food to make up for it.

 

"Happy birthday!" Hermione says brightly, passing Harriet a glossily-wrapped parcel as they dig in to large slices of heavily frosted chocolate cake studded with red and yellow sugar flowers. Harriet gently peels back the paper, doing her best not to tear it. There's a book, she's fondly amused to see.

 

"It's about the physics of flight," Hermione chirps. "Even I don't understand most of it, but it could be fun. Oh, I hope you like it."

 

"I do," Harriet says, running a finger down the spine, breathing in the scent of glue and paper. It's hers, it's a gift, it's— she doesn't even know.

 

If only the day could remain this wonderful till the end.

 

The Grangers drop her off back at the Dursleys before dinner, as they'd promised. Vernon shoos her up the stairs as soon as she's over the threshold, the book and the rest of the cake clutched to her chest. "Remember," he snarls, "one peep from you and…" He trails off threateningly and slams her bedroom door. She takes the book out of its bag, puts the cake beneath a loose floorboard, and lays down on her springy mattress, immediately beginning to read. The text is dry. She doesn't understand much of it (addendum: she doesn't understand any of it), but she hardly cares.

 

Harriet would have gladly continued in this vain until the dinner guests left, but a loud CRACK disturbs her.

 

A strange little creature with huge bat-like ears and round green eyes stands wringing his hands in the middle of the room. He wears what looks to be a ragged pillowcase with holes cut for arms and legs. Harriet doubts it lends him any sense of dignity. "Harriet Potter," he squeaks, then bows deeply. "Such an honor to meet you."

 

She reluctantly closes the physics book on an incomprehensible diagram of a hang glider. "Who are you?" (What are you? is the question that comes to mind first, but it seems rather rude.)

 

"Dobby," he says. "Dobby the house-elf."

 

"A what?"

 

"A house-elf. We serves Wizarding families. Dobby's ancestors has been serving his for generations." It's not quite pride, but it's close.

 

"And someone sent you?" His voice is of such a pitch that she's certain it's carrying downstairs, even though he isn't talking loudly. So, well, she wants him to leave sooner rather than later.

 

He shakes his head. "No. I came to warn you. Harriet Potter must not go back to Hogwarts!"

 

"Because there's some horrible danger?" she mutters.

 

He nods hard enough that his ears flap.

 

"Hogwarts is home. I can't not go back. I can't— I can't stay here when I know how much better it is there."

 

"Miss Harriet must not go back!" Dobby maintains. "You will be safer here."

 

Harriet laughs derisively. "Right. Safe. And unhappy. Honestly, I prefer the prospect of danger."

 

Dobby's expression goes sly. "If Dobby gives Miss Harriet back her letters, will she promise to stay here?" He pulls a large bundle of envelopes from his pillowcase, waving them tantalizingly.

 

"You little—“ She leaps to her feet and grabs for them. The resultant chase and pudding explosion end with her locked in her room for the foreseeable future, and she's never wanted Hogwarts more.

 

She gets the Weasleys instead, in the middle of the night in a flying car outside her window. "Hermione said she was worried about you, but her mum wouldn't listen to her," Ron says as Harriet's settling into the backseat next to him, her trunk and Hedwig's cage wedged beside her.

 

"Believe her about what?" she asks, rather sharper than she intends.

 

"Erm, well, you know…" Ron won't meet her eye. "The way the Muggles treat you."

 

"Do you know anything about house-elves?" she asks, in a bid to change the subject. "Because it was a house-elf that was stealing my letters."

 

"That's odd," Fred says. "Could have been a prank, maybe. Any enemies, Harriet?"

 

"Besides Voldemort? Er, sure. Draco Malfoy. Total prick."

 

"Seems like something he would do," Ron mutters darkly.

 

"Maybe," Harriet yawns, "but Dobby—that’s the house-elf's name—said there would be great danger at Hogwarts this year, and it didn't seem like something he was supposed to tell me."

 

The Weasleys' house is fantastic. Harriet loves the rickety chaos of it, the crotchety garden gnomes, the horrific orange shade of Ron's Chudley Cannons posters. She likes Ron's little sister, too—or would, if Ginny hadn't run off in tears at the first sight of her.

 

"She used to fantasize that you'd be her soulmate," Ron explains, embarrassed. "She's always, erm, adored you. Wouldn't shut up about it for weeks at a time. Thought she was over it, honestly. Guess you're _not_ her soulmate, eh?"

 

Harriet automatically touches her ribbon, twisting it about her wrist. "Yeah." She doesn’t know Ginny, but she can't help briefly wishing such childish fantasies had come true.

 

August passes strangely—strange in that Harriet enjoys it. She never has before, since most of the sweltering days are have usually been spent doing the Dursleys' least pleasant outdoor chores. But here at the Burrow, she can do more or less whatever she wants. And she can eat as much as she likes, although Mrs. Weasley solicitously offers her far more.

 

The return to Hogwarts is not anti-climactic. It is downright explosive. It started with the Weasleys’ usual bustle, then went pear-shaped. Harriet and Ron wrecked one flying car, damaged one rabid tree, broke one wand, and nearly died. "Way to be Gryffindors!" Ron cheers as he drives expertly—er, possibly very badly, but they haven't crashed into anything yet—through friendly, fluffy clouds. "I can't wait to tell Fred and George."

 

Harriet agrees with him, up until the part where they nearly die, but at least they made it to school on time.

 

"We couldn't get onto the platform to catch the train!" they both protest, their palms sweaty and their throats dry.

 

Snape glowers down at them, his fathomless eyes like dark tunnels of doom. "Detention," he snaps. "And be grateful it isn't much worse for you." He glances over their heads. "Isn't that right, headmaster?"

 

"Naturally, Severus," Dumbledore says softly, "though I would have been less harsh." He gives Harriet and Ron a look of deepest disappointment. Harriet decides she prefers Snape's harshness. Much easier to understand, much more familiar.

 

Harriet and Ron are cheered in the common room. Hermione, relieved and disappointed simultaneously, hugs them both. The attention's all a bit much for Harriet, but damn is she glad to be back. What's that horrible prickling feeling beneath Dumbledore's gaze and some awkward waves to her adoring fans next to that?

 

Halloween this year is somehow worse than last year, because it is apparently possible to top attempted murder by troll. First there's a ghost party with awful food and awful music and awful atmosphere. "We should have gone to the feast," Ron moans, his stomach growling loudly enough to be heard over the orchestra of bowed saws.

 

"Hey," Harriet mutters, "I was only trying to repay a favor. Nick meant well."

 

"This is fascinating," Hermione says gamely. "And it's a once in a lifetime opportunity."

 

"Lifetime?" Ron snorts. "You sure that's the right word? I don't have any plans to come to one of these things when I'm dead. Do you?"

 

Then, on their way back upstairs—to get food, if they're lucky—they stumble across a petrified cat and a grisly announcement. Harriet heard bloodthirsty whispering, so it's her fault they end up there. Typical, really.

 

"The Chamber of Secrets has been opened," Malfoy reads behind them, while the rest of the school stands stock-still. "You'll be next, Mudbloods," he concludes, then squeaks in pain. One of his Housemates has taken the opportunity to elbow him. Harriet doesn't see whom.

 

"It isn't Malfoy!" Harriet says for the hundredth time a couple days into November. The three of them have been arguing in circles since Halloween. Hermione has a harebrained idea to make a sixth-year—at the very least—potion just so they can sneak into the Slytherin common room.

 

"How do you know?" Hermione asks, exasperated.

 

Harriet begins ticking off the reasons on her fingers—not for the first time. "Malfoy likes it when people think he's more important than he really is. He's twelve; if his dad knows something about the Chamber opening, he definitely wouldn't have shared it with him, because the very first thing Malfoy'd do is tell all his friends and then the whole school. And, oh yeah, you suspected Snape last year, and you were way off."

 

It should have been Hermione saying this stuff, but she's been acting oddly all term—before the Chamber even. First it was all the blushing she did around Lockhart, their obviously frivolous Defense professor. Then it was all the pitying glances she kept giving Harriet; Harriet thinks it has something to do with what Hermione had seen at the Dursleys', but she's not completely sure. But she despises the cloying sensation of Hermione's periodic glances when they're doing homework and Harriet chews on her nails, or when they're at dinner and Harriet eats less than just about everyone at the table (thank god Hermione's got no idea about the small stash of food Harriet keeps in her trunk).

 

So, unsurprisingly, their friendship has cooled considerably. "What is wrong with you two?" Ron asks her one day. She has nothing to tell him.

 

The first Quidditch match is supposed to make Harriet feel better, but it does the opposite. That night, instead of celebrating their narrow victory in the common room, she's in the hospital wing doped up on Skelegro, her arm hurting like hell and the inside of her mouth tasting like moist chalk.

 

"Dobby is so sorry, Harriet Potter, but Dobby warned you about danger at Hogwarts."

 

"You closed the platform," she accuses, her voice strained. "You jinxed that bludger."

 

"Dobby thought that if Harriet Potter was injured enough, she would have to go home." He is uncomfortably earnest.

 

"If I weren't regrowing all the bones in my right arm," she whispers through clenched teeth, "I would strangle you with it." The threat feels fantastic.

 

"Dobby is very sorry," he repeats, not at all fazed. "Dobby is used to threats. He gets them a lot at home."

 

Harriet hates being pitied, but her throat is thick with it just the same. "I know you mean well," she sighs. "But please stop doing things that might get me killed."

 

Several people enter the hospital wing then, hoisting a body between them. Sounds like the Chamber's monster has graduated from cats to bigger prey—although Colin Creevey is tiny. They should really consider putting this sort of thing in the Hogwarts brochure.

 

*

 

Hermione and Ron are brewing the damn potion in the out-of-order girls' bathroom where Moaning Myrtle dwells. Harriet drops in on them sometimes. She's annoyed, true, but she doesn't want them to get caught and penalized, either.

 

"There will be enough here for you, if you change your mind," Hermione tells her archly. "It's not like you've ever been opposed to rule-breaking before."

 

"I've reformed," Harriet mumbles. "Rules are there to protect us from ourselves." Ron, predictably, laughs so hard that he nearly tips the entire stock of stolen lacewing flies into the cauldron. Hermione snatches them out of his reach with a huff.

 

The truth is that Harriet is having second thoughts about refusing to join them. But her pride's the one thing she's always had, no matter what other people did.

 

Lockhart starts up a dueling club. Practically the entire school squeezes into the Great Hall for the inaugural meeting, including a motley crew of seventh-years, all of them jaded to varying degrees. Harriet, Ron, and Hermione stand as close to the back as they can without losing the view of the stage. Harriet spots all the Gryffindors from their year. She recognizes most of the first years. One, however, is missing.

 

"Is Ginny here?" she asks Ron.

 

"Dunno. She wouldn't miss this sort of thing for the world. Maybe she's sick?" He looks worried for a moment, but then Lockhart's calling for their attention and getting satisfyingly Disarmed by Snape, and he relaxes.

 

Somehow—Harriet's not really sure how—she finds herself on the stage across from a grimacing (nervous enough to piss his pants) Malfoy. Lockhart gives her a useless tip she deliberately doesn't hear. Snape whispers something to Malfoy that causes him to smirk. Harriet's prepared to cast the Disarming Charm on _three_ , but Malfoy beats her to it. A long, slender snake emerges spitting madly from his wand. It hits the floor with a fervent :I bloody well do not want to be here you bastards: and rears up at the posh Hufflepuff Finch-Fletchley.

 

There's a split second where all Harriet can think is: he's almost as much of a prick as Malfoy. Then common sense takes over, and she's remembering that time at the zoo and the python that was homesick for a place it had never been, and she should probably—

 

:Leave him alone, dammit!: The snake, surprised, lowers itself to the floor, completely docile. Snape immediately Vanishes it, giving Harriet an unreadable look.

 

Everyone in the Hall is gaping at Harriet. Merlin! What did she do now?

 

"Why didn't you tell us you could speak to snakes?" Ron sputters as soon as he and Hermione have dragged her up several flights of stairs.

 

"Didn't seem important," Harriet says.

 

"Didn't seem important?" Hermione hisses. "Harriet, do you have any idea how rare your ability is?"

 

Rare as finding your soulmate? Harriet nearly snaps. Instead, she settles for a frustrated shake of her head.

 

"God, of course you don't." Hermione pops a sugar-free peppermint into her mouth, her face scrunching up at the taste. "The last known Parselmouth was Slytherin himself. Right, Ron?"

 

"Er, yeah." Ron scuffs his shoe against the stone of the deserted corridor. "Maybe You-Know-Who, too."

 

"Well, lucky me." Harriet slides down the wall and wraps her arms about her knees. "Guess they'll start saying I opened the Chamber."

 

They both nod unhappily.

 

She isn't wrong. The next day when she's the first person to find a Petrified Finch-Fletchley and Nearly Headless Nick, McGonagall escorts her to Dumbledore's office.

 

"I didn't do it!" Harriet protests.

 

"It's out of my hands, Potter, “McGonagall returns, and leaves her in the strange room, alone except for a bunch of portraits and a bird that bursts into flames.

 

"Fawkes is a phoenix, Harriet," Dumbledore tells her reassuringly when he enters and sees her panicking near the pile of ash. "When it is time for them to die, they burn and are reborn from the ashes."

 

"That's cool, sir."

 

"Very much so." They sit without exchanging any words for several comfortable moments. Dumbledore rests his chin on his twined fingers. Harriet bounces her left foot.

 

"Is there anything you wish to tell me?" he finally asks. He sounds kind, looks calm and not a bit accusing. The baby phoenix gives a little coo from its ashy nest.

 

What does he expect from her? A secret? A confession to some other crime? (The Pollyjuice is coming right along, according to Hermione.) That she was afraid the Parseltongue came from her soulmate?

 

"No," she decides.

 

"Very well," Dumbledore murmurs. "You may go. And Harriet?" She turns her head, her hand on the doorknob. "Do be careful. It would be far better to walk the corridors with friends rather than alone."

 

"Yes, sir," she says ungraciously and hurries out.

 

*

 

Harriet experiences a sort of vindictive pleasure—and consequently nauseating guilt—when the Pollyjuice plan results in no new information whatsoever. Ron and Hermione follow Malfoy into the Slytherin common room as Crabbe and Goyle, with Harriet keeping reluctant vigil outside in case they need to leave quickly and discreetly. Yes, the Chamber was opened before. Yes, Malfoy's dad probably knows something. No, Malfoy isn't the one responsible for the attacks.

 

"Told you so," Harriet gloats as they make their way back to Myrtle's bathroom under the Cloak, Ron's and Hermione's too-large robes causing them to stumble periodically.

 

"Oh, gloat all you want," Hermione snaps. "I had to listen to Malfoy refer to me as a Mudblood at least five times within the last hour, so would you mind keeping your opinions to yourself?"

 

"I'm sorry."

 

"You'd better be." Hermione hiccups a sob and squeezes her eyes shut. Ron looks from Harriet to Hermione and back, then awkwardly pats Hermione's shoulder.

 

Conversation is often strained between the three of them. They do homework together; they research Petrification in the library. But their camaraderie is far from what it was last year.

 

Harriet has tea with Hagrid a few times in the evenings; she doesn't invite Ron or Hermione along. "Everything all right?" Hagrid always greets her.

 

"No," Harriet invariably replies. "The whole school thinks I'm the Heir of Slytherin and Hermione and I aren't— aren't getting along."

 

"Sorry to hear that," Hagrid says. "Here. Have another rock cake." She takes one, soaks it in her tea, and nibbles on it gratefully.

 

"You were here when the Chamber was opened before, weren't you?" she asks through a raisin-laden mouthful.

 

"That's right," Hagrid grunts. "Rather not think about it, though. I was expelled that very same year, you know."

 

"Oh. Oh, that's terrible."

 

He nods, eyes downcast. Fang lifts his head from where it rests in Harriet's lap and trots over to nuzzle Hagrid's hand.

 

Harriet is walking alone through the corridors one day in early February. It's too cold to go flying for the fun of it, even if they were allowed on the grounds without an escort. Ron and Hermione are in the library, researching things that spiders may avoid (Ron kept commenting with increasing shrillness about all the spiders he'd seen recently, until Hermione took it upon herself to reassure him).

 

Harriet settles in an alcove behind a morosely creaking suit of armor and opens the flight book Hermione gave her, sadly fingering her favorite diagrams. She doesn't know how much time passes before frantic footsteps startle her.

 

A small figure in student robes streaks down the corridor past Harriet's hiding place, as though something snarls at their heels. Nothing is chasing them, however, except a slow trickle of water across the floor.

 

Maybe they came from Myrtle's bathroom? It isn't far from here, and where else would the water have come from? Harriet retraces the unknown student's steps, wondering with quiet dread what she will find.

 

Myrtle is crying, loud even by her liberal standards. "She threw it at me," she sobs. "When my toilet overflowed, it landed right there." She points a trembling, transparent finger at a sink.

 

It's a book. It's not a book, merely a metaphysical anomaly that wishes to be a book: a book-shaped gash in the fabric of the universe. Harriet lifts it from its puddle and tries to understand this—

_T. M. Riddle._

 

She wants to put the book—diary, she concludes—down and forget she's ever seen it. She doesn't quite know why. She finds herself putting it into her bag anyway.

 

"Oh, good riddance," Myrtle says. "Please take it far away from me. I never want to see it or the horrid girl who threw it again."

 

"Did you see who it was?" Harriet asks hopefully.

 

"No!" Myrtle shrieks, and dives into her toilet with an enormous splash, which does nothing for the waterlogged tiles.

 

After dinner, Harriet opens the diary in the refuge of her four-poster. She's alone in the room for the moment; everyone else is still watching an impromptu Exploding Snap tournament in the common room that Fred and George organized. The first page is blank, then the second, then all the rest. The year, unobtrusive in the inside cover, is 1943.

 

Harriet's hand itches, inches toward a quill. She bites her cheek, tucks her hand under her arm. No, no, she shouldn't write here. Who knows where her words will end up.

 

She writes in it, anyway.

 

 _Hello, I'm Harriet._ Best not give her full name. No telling what could be done with it.

 

There is a pause, during which Harriet's nausea peaks and she wants more fervently than ever to throw the diary far away. Then—

 

_Harriet? My name is Tommie Riddle._

 

_Who are you? What are you?_

 

 _I am a memory, preserved for fifty years. How did you come by my diary?_ The letters dash feverishly across the page.

 

Harriet sets the quill aside and chews on the nails of her writing hand. _Does it matter?_ she finally replies. _I have it. Whoever had it before does not._

 

_True. But they may want it back, in time._

 

Harriet knows, based on the date, that the conscious memory within the diary likely overlapped with the last opening of the Chamber of Secrets. She isn't fool enough to ask just yet. Information from a diary-shaped hole in the universe is probably going to be slanted toward filling itself, so that it's, well, no longer a hole.

 

Harriet puts the diary away, deep in the bottom of her trunk in a pair of Vernon's socks that she'd nicked once for the thrill, and vows never to write in it again. Her intentions have never been better.

 

 _They arrested Hagrid last night_ , Harriet scrawls in panic a few days later, her fingers numb. She has nowhere else to turn. Hermione lays stiff as death in the hospital wing (and they still haven't made up, and Harriet misses her, misses her), and Ron is as out of ideas as Harriet is. _They say he opened the Chamber fifty years ago, but there's no way in hell it was him! Do you have any idea who did it? Surely you were there._

 

_Calm down, and tell me everything from the beginning, won't you?_

 

So Harriet tells her (her? them? She'll figure it out later) about Hermione's idea right before the Quidditch match with Hufflepuff, and how Hagrid had been arrested that night—they'd found that out at breakfast this morning from a shell-shocked Professor McGonagall. Dumbledore had apparently been forced out in the same unfortunate episode, so his duties were left to her.

 

 _Are you quite sure Hagrid isn't responsible?_ Tommie asks. _No? I could show you what I witnessed of the unpleasantness fifty years ago, if you like._

 

Harriet's reservations remain, but if there's anything she can do to help Hagrid, then what's giving a little to a mysterious diary/hole in the universe? _Okay_ , she writes.

 

The result is instantaneous. A small window appears to open on the page. When Harriet presses her nose close to get a better look, her stomach swoops and her surroundings blur and shift. When she blinks, Dumbledore's office has settled around her. An elderly man leans forward over the desk—not Dumbledore, unsurprisingly, but Harriet thinks she recognizes him from one of the portraits. A dark-haired girl stands with her back to Harriet, sharp elbows jutting out.

 

"I'm sorry, Miss Riddle," the old headmaster is saying. "Hogwarts doesn't allow any students to stay for the summer holidays. No exceptions: not for Purebloods, not for Muggle-borns, not for Muggle-raised Half-bloods like yourself." He sighs heavily. "And with this Chamber of Secrets nonsense and that poor girl… Why, I don't know if Hogwarts can remain open after this year."

 

Tommie stiffens. "But what if the culprit is caught, sir?"

 

Neither of them has taken any notice of Harriet. She paces around the edge of the office. There is no phoenix on a perch, no collection of whirligigs, no character to speak of. This— this is only a memory. Memories aren't conscious; they just are, unchanged, unchanging. Tommie Riddle met the old headmaster in his office and asked to stay at Hogwarts for the summer. No one witnessing it fifty years later can change that.

 

Which means…

 

"Do you know something, Miss Riddle?" the old man asks sharply.

 

"Nothing for certain, sir," she replies quickly. "I had best be going, to pack and whatnot."

 

"Of course," he says. "Good evening."

 

Riddle walks purposefully to the door. As she turns the handle, her sleeve falls back from her wrist to reveal an uncovered soulmark—a half-circle of a familiar faded gold, perhaps a headless serpent. Harriet tilts her head, trying to see the other half, but Riddle does not dawdle in the doorway. Harriet is dragged after her by some unseen force. Down the spiral stairs they go, through a mostly deserted Entrance Hall (except for a suspicious, bizarrely young Professor Dumbledore), and end up deep in the dungeons where Harriet has never been.

 

As the—again—bizarrely young Hagrid's pet giant spider runs out of sight, Harriet stamps her foot. "He didn't do it! Riddle, I know you can hear me. You're no memory, even if this is."

 

She finds herself abruptly deposited on her bed, the diary still in her hand and open to the same page. _You're a feisty one, aren't you?_ If dead, unfeeling writing could seem intrigued, then Riddle's does.

_You, um, weren’t the one to open the Chamber, were you?_ Harriet scrawls hesitantly.

 

 _Me?_ Riddle seems bitterly amused. _For all my time in school, I was thought to be Muggle-born, despite my Sorting into Slytherin. Why, after years of torment, would I wish to finish the work of a blessedly dead Blood purist?_

 

 _I don’t know_ , Harriet admits, flushing. _But Hagrid didn’t deserve—_

_Perhaps I was so desperate for Hogwarts to remain open that ensuring Hagrid's expulsion was the least terrible thing I could have done._

 

That actually seems reasonable to Harriet. What lengths would she herself go to? _Hogwarts is my first real home_ , she writes. _I can’t— it can't close._

 

_You're one insignificant little girl. What could you possibly do to stop it?_

 

Harriet's hand is steady. _I could find the real culprit behind the Chamber of Secrets._

 

 _You could_ , Tommie hedges. _I suppose I could help you with that._

 

Harriet doubts she truly will, but there's no harm in bouncing ideas off her. _The Heir of Slytherin is a Parselmouth, and the only Parselmouth I know of is Voldemort—you know, the worst dark, erm, magic-user of this century. Could she be influencing someone somehow? Does she have a secret kid?_

 

It takes Tommie too long to answer, and when she does, it's a far cry from helpful: _I don't know. I expect this Voldemort's power is leagues beyond either of our understanding._

 

 _Yeah_ , Harriet agrees, goose bumps racing up her arms. _Wouldn't surprise me._

 

The next evening, the diary is gone, and Harriet's things are in disarray. "We don't know who did it," Parvati tells her. "It was like this when Lav and I got back from dinner."

 

The disappointment is unexpectedly sharp, even though Harriet knows she should be relieved.

 

The next couple months are quiet. There are no new attacks. Lockhart tells anyone who will listen—which, given that he's a professor with the student body as his captive audience, is a lot of people—that the Chamber is closed. His mere presence scared the Heir away and the monster back underground where it belonged. Harriet and Ron laugh together at this ludicrous statement. "I can't believe Hermione fancied him," Ron says.

 

"Yeah," Harriet sighs. "Wish she were here to explain why he's so wonderful."

 

Harriet finds herself thinking about Tommie during innumerable lonely moments, thinking about the shape of Tommie’s exposed mark, thinking about how she'd felt a little less alone when she'd written in the diary. And then Harriet wishes her soulmate could have been someone like Tommie, because literally _anyone_ would be better than— her thoughts shy away, as they always do.

 

*

 

"All students must return to their common rooms immediately!" Professor McGonagall announces, her voice magically magnified so that the entire castle hears.

 

Harriet and Ron exchange panicked glances over Hermione's bed, Ron clutching the page about basilisks she had been holding for so many weeks. "What do we do?" he whispers.

 

"We figure out what's happened, and then we go and talk to Myrtle about how she died," Harriet says, voice steady.

 

"And then?" Ron wonders, his face going pale.

 

"I guess we're about to find out."

 

Dragging Lockhart with them to rescue Ginny is quite responsible, Harriet reasons. He's an idiot and a fraud and lacks basic decency, but he's a step up from the (complete lack of) support they had last year— at least until he tries to Obliviate both her and Ron and caves in part of the tunnel in the process, leaving Harriet stranded on the Chamber side.

 

"Good luck," Ron calls through a small gap in the fallen rocks, an eerie echo of Hermione.

 

Harriet takes tentative step after tentative step down the dripping passageway. At every spatter, she jumps, imagining the basilisk slithering out of the dark, imagining the shadow that had fled an underground chamber a year ago. She thinks she sees movement, but— no, it's nothing. Just her eyes playing tricks.

 

:Open,: Harriet hisses at a pair of double doors, and they oblige to reveal a legend. And also Ginny, who appears to be dead.

 

"Come on, Ginny. Wake up!" Harriet shakes her desperately. Ginny looks so small, her chalk-white face covered in wet ginger tangles, her skin freezing to the touch. The diary—the diary?—lies innocuously between her feet. Harriet pockets it on a whim.

 

"She won't wake." Riddle, tall and slender and strangely blurred, emerges from behind a pillar, her feet making no sound upon the stone.

 

"Tommie," Harriet cries, "you have to help me. There's a basilisk and Slytherin's heir here somewhere, and we have to go—“

 

Tommie draws closer, and as she does, Harriet feels a sensation not unlike dental work with a localized anesthetic. She knows that it should be pain, yet it's merely uncomfortable.

 

"You have nothing to worry about. The serpent will only come when it's called." Riddle smiles blandly.

 

"How do you know that?" Harriet asks plaintively. "The heir could come back anytime, so we've got to get out of here."

 

"I hoped for more from you, Harriet Potter." Riddle spits Harriet's last name. Her unruffled expression curdles, her dark eyes going blank. "Oh, did you really think I didn't know precisely who you were? Rather clever of you, keeping your full name from me, but futile." She stalks in a circle around Harriet and Ginny, twirling Ginny's wand. The wrist that should have sported her soulmark is utterly unblemished. "Little Miss Weasley told me all about you in the midst of her woes: how she wanted you to be her soulmate, how unkind her brothers were to her, so on and so forth. I've forgotten most of it." She's directly in front of Harriet now, the odd, washed-out quality of her form unmistakable in the Chamber’s faint green glow.

 

Harriet's heart is racing, her pulse thundering in her ears. "What are you doing to her?"

 

"Please," Riddle hums. "Take a guess or two. We have time."

 

"You're— you're draining her somehow, so you can escape the diary." Because she'd always known what the diary was. Why hadn't she told someone? Oh, right. Because she felt she had no one to tell.

 

"Very good. And have you, by any chance, understood how the Chamber came to be opened?" Riddle poses this question with an almost professorrial air.

 

Harriet has to answer correctly; she doesn't think it'll increase the likelihood of getting Ginny out of here alive, but what can it hurt? Her thoughts whir. The answer is right on the tip of her tongue—

 

"You," Harriet says, everything clicking sickeningly in her mind. "You're not only draining Ginny, but possessing her." Like what Voldemort did with Professor Quirrell. An awful suspicion begins to take hold, but she endeavors to push it away.

 

Riddle is impressed. "Not so disappointing, after all."

 

"Hang on," Harriet says, a new dread seizing her. "There was an attack when I had the diary."

 

"No, I did not possess you," Riddle says. "Ginny was never terribly far away from where you kept me." She appears prepared to say more, then shakes her head minutely.

 

"Oh, good." Harriet hoists herself to her feet, dragging Ginny with her. "I think I'll be on my way, then. Doubt you need Ginny to stick around anymore." Her free hand inches toward her wand; she'll Disarm Riddle when she least expects it and make a run for it. What else can she do?

 

Riddle, without so much as a blink, Disarms Harriet and catches her wand. "I'm sorry," she murmurs. "I can't have any witnesses." She spreads her hands helplessly. "But while you still live, there is one thing I would dearly like to know."

 

"And what is that?" Harriet's head droops. She's really going to die this time.

 

"How did you do it?" Riddle asks with a genuine note of curiosity. "How did you defeat Lord Voldemort, the greatest dark witch or wizard to ever live, when you were an— an infant!" Her curiosity is morphing steadily into strident rage.

 

"Couldn't tell you," Harriet says. "But what do you care? Voldemort was after your time, wasn't she?" But no, that isn't right. The suspicion Harriet ignored comes roaring to the fore.

 

"Oh, Harriet," Riddle sighs. "Voldemort is my future. Voldemort is my present."

 

"But you're wearing Hogwarts robes," Harriet says blankly. "How can Voldemort be your present?"

 

Riddle blinks. This is clearly not quite the reaction she expected. "I beg your pardon."

 

"You can't be more than sixteen," Harriet goes on more confidently. "Can living people have ghosts? What are you?"

 

"I'm afraid question and answer time has come to an end," Riddle says, abruptly turning her back on Harriet and approaching a towering marble statue. "Now, I could certainly finish you quickly and cleanly with a Killing Curse, but the basilisk has been cooped up for quite a while. She deserves another chance to play."

 

"Wait," Harriet croaks.

Riddle—baby Voldemort—ignores her. :Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts Four!: At that, everything goes to hell.

 

The basilisk is huge, all right, and bright green. It lands on the Chamber floor with a heavy thud and begins writhing toward Harriet, that ravenous hissing she's heard for months issuing forth. :That's right,: Riddle croons. :Kill her.: Harriet is doomed.

 

Then the phoenix arrives, the Sorting Hat of all things dangling from his talons. He drops it in front of Harriet, then swoops at the basilisk, clawing relentlessly at its eyes.

 

"A bird and a hat?" Riddle laughs. "Dumbledore's gone round the bend."

 

Harriet kind of thinks so, too, but she puts the Sorting Hat on anyway for something to do, then nearly gets brained by the sword that falls on her head.

 

It's a very nice sword, to her inexpert eye. There are gargantuan rubies inlaid in the hilt. She can hardly lift the thing, but she somehow ends up standing with her feet apart, the sword resting in the crook of her right arm.

 

:Ignore the bird. Kill the girl.: The basilisk is rushing at Harriet again, its murdering eyes reduced to blood-filled sockets. She doesn't think about what she's doing, only feels the sword in her hand and the panic rushing through her, and stabs the oncoming serpent through its eye socket to its brain.

 

Oh, she’s— she's covered in its blood, and the sword is sticking out the other side—

 

"My god." Riddle gives Harriet a slow round of applause. "I believe I won't forget that, as many cen— years as I shall live."

 

Did she almost say centuries?

 

Whatever. Not important. With a flourish, Harriet pulls the diary from her pocket.

 

"Cute, little girl. But your time is up." Riddle raises Harriet's wand.

 

"Oh?" And Harriet pulls off her ribbon, holding out her vivid mark for Riddle's incredulous inspection.

 

"What is this?" Riddle's face is suffused with shock and wonder at the sight. Harriet tears her eyes away and thrusts the diary into the dead basilisk's gaping mouth, pushing it onto a curving fang. "No!" Riddle shouts. "No! What have you done?" Her form, for a brief second perfectly clear, begins blurring.

 

"The only thing I could," Harriet replies.

 

Riddle screams, on and on. As the last of her spectral body vanishes, her keening fading into ringing silence, the not-pain vanishes, too.

 

"Harriet?" Ginny whispers, barely audible.

 

"I'm here." Harriet scoots across the floor to her, struggling to retie her ribbon one-handed. She can't quite do it; one end slips from her bloody fingers, and it slides to her lap.

 

"Do you need some help?" Ginny struggles to sit up. Harriet puts her left arm around Ginny’s shoulders to keep her upright.

 

"I guess." Harriet passes the ribbon to Ginny, who ties it deftly despite her near-draining.

 

"You've already met your soulmate," Ginny says when she's finished.

 

"Yeah," Harriet says. She does not elaborate, and Ginny doesn't pry.

 

"I won't tell anyone," she promises.

 

"Thank you," Harriet murmurs.

 

The phoenix flies all of them safely back up the pipe. "I'm flying!" Lockhart shouts with unbridled enthusiasm. Ron punches him. Lockhart doesn't seem to notice.

 

They're interrogated in McGonagall's office by a frantic McGonagall and a relieved Dumbledore. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley embrace Ginny and take her off to the hospital wing. "You saved her. I can never thank you enough," Mrs. Weasley tells Harriet before they go, giving her a tight hug of her own. Harriet smiles. She's never been hugged like that.

 

*

 

"Hey, Ron," Harriet says, taking her seat next to him at the all-night celebratory feast. "Remember Dobby?"

 

"Kinda," he replies thickly through a mouthful of pudding.

 

"He was the Malfoys' elf, but he's free now. Mr. Malfoy planted that diary on Ginny, and Dobby was just doing the best he could."

 

"Oh. Okay."

 

Freeing Dobby (whose gratitude was boundless) and watching Mr. Malfoy's reaction had been a brilliant moment. But all Harriet can really think about is Dumbledore's quiet confirmation: "Yes, Harriet. Tommie Riddle is indeed the name of the witch now known as Lord Voldemort."

 

Hermione comes in around three, and Harriet rushes to meet her halfway. They embrace, both of them in tears. "I'm so sorry for refusing to talk to you," Harriet sobs.

 

"And I'm sorry for trying to push anything before you were ready," Hermione says, her brown eyes wide in her distress.

 

"God, I've missed you so much!" They stumble back to Ron, still holding onto each other.

 

"I want a turn," Ron protests, grinning. "I've missed her, too." Then he throws his arms around both of them.

 

Harriet's chest is light and warm. Near-death experiences still manage to put things into perspective for her, oddly enough.

 

"Final exams are hereby canceled," Dumbledore proclaims from his festively decorated spot at the staff table. Hagrid sits next to him, beaming, listing tipsily sideways.

 

"Damn," Hermione moans.

 

"Good," Harriet disagrees. She really can't remember putting much effort into homework this year. Ah well. There's always next year.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first half of third year.

The first herald of Voldemort's salvation arrives in the form of a serpent.

The serpent  comes upon Voldemort when she has just left the body of an expired mouse, the serpent's intended prey. The mouse has shriveled  by the time the unfortunate serpent reaches it, and she rears back impressively. :Prey stealer!: she hisses, thrashing her diamond-patterned tail.

 

:My apologies, friend,: Voldemort replies. Parseltongue doesn't rely on mouth or tongue, for it is not truly sound. It is a whispered vibration—a sound before a sound, which even she in her mean, ectoplasmic state can manage.

 

The serpent flicks her tongue dubiously. :I'm still hungry,: she affirms, petulant. :Apologies don't catch food.:

 

:I suppose I can help you with that, to make up for your loss,: Voldemort offers. It's the least she can do in exchange for what she will demand in return.

 

:Help how?:

 

:I can lead you to places with much better prey. All you need do is allow me to share your body and to see through your eyes.:

 

:Fine.: The serpent is hungry; she'll agree to almost anything. Voldemort does as she has done a hundred times before—to rodents and nonmagical snakes; once, in the intervening months since Quirrell, to a Muggle who died as swiftly as the rodents had, before she could return to civilization. This time, however, something is different. The serpent's life force holds its own against her ravenous assault, yet she finds her yawning emptiness lessened.

 

:Where's the prey?: the serpent grouses.

 

:Patience!: The serpent's hunger does not faze Voldemort. She is aware of it, aware of every flutter of the serpent's heart and the brush of leaf mold against her scales. But Voldemort has not flesh of her own, thus flesh-born concerns are not her concerns. (It's a freedom she craved before, yet finds herself now wishing for endlessly.)

 

:A shrew,: the serpent notes. Voldemort draws inward just enough to allow her to catch it. There is a fluidity to her movements that Voldemort admires. Perhaps being a snake isn't such a lowly existence. At the very least, it's a step up from where she had been.

 

:You need a name, friend.:

 

:Why?: the serpent asks, swallowing her shrew. :I know who I am.:

 

:I do not,: Voldemort returns. :Thus, a designation for you is necessary and helpful for me.:

 

:Whatever. Do what you want.:

 

:Naga,: Voldemort decides. She briefly considers Nagini, the feminine form, but concludes it would be antithetical to the less than traditionally feminine image she has striven for so long to project. And Naga suits the serpent better, or perhaps Voldemort is feeling uncharacteristically generous.

 

The newly christened Naga is unimpressed. :I have no need of your fancy name-things. I—:

 

:—know who you are, yes.: Voldemort chokes Naga's protests. :Yet it may not always be so.:

 

With Naga, the forest in which Voldemort hides becomes smaller for a time—until the cold sets in and Naga needs to bed down for the winter. Voldemort considers leaving her to find another host, but one would turn into two would turn into many, and none will compare.

 

Voldemort stays. What's the harm in sleeping for a few months? No one will come looking for her in the winter anyway.

 

*

 

For Harriet, this summer has been one disappointment after the last.

 

She gets a letter from Hermione a couple weeks in, explaining—among other things—that she and her parents are going to France. "I asked if you could come, but they said no."

 

No potential outings, then.

 

Ron is out of the country, too, visiting his brother in Egypt. He attempts to call her on the "felytone,” as he sagely puts it just before their departure, but Vernon is the one to pick up, and Harriet subsequently doesn't get dinner.

 

Things pick up for the briefest moment on her thirteenth birthday, when she receives gifts from Ron, Hermione, and Hagrid—all delivered just after midnight. And yes, Hagrid's _Monster Book of Monsters_ tries to take a large bite of her hand, but what does she care?

 

The owl that delivers Hagrid's gift also delivers the third year booklist and a permission form for Hogsmeade visits. Harriet's good mood remains undampened; she'll figure out something.

 

Harriet is still giddy at breakfast, so much so that even Dudley notices. "What's your problem?" he demands.

 

"Haven't got one, today," she replies, smirking at him.

 

"Make her stop, dad," Dudley complains.

 

Vernon actually smiles a self-satisfied little smile. "Yes, fine. Marge is visiting this week."

 

Harriet wilts.

 

Seeing this, Vernon goes on. "I want you on your best behavior. No funny business. No snide little comments."

 

"What? I'd never say anything like that," Harriet says. Petunia chokes. When Harriet looks at her, however, her expression is typically pinched.

 

"I'm off to pick Marge up from the station," Vernon announces, pushing back his chair and stomping loudly down the hall. "Make sure everything is perfect by the time we get back." They hear the jangling of his keys and the front door slam.

 

"They'll be here in an hour," Petunia sighs. She gestures sharply for Harriet to follow her, then dumps a pile of freshly laundered sheets into her arms. "Make the bed in the guest room."

 

"Then come back for more, right?" Harriet mutters.

 

Petunia purses her lips and doesn't bother answering.

 

Making the bed doesn't take long. To cheer herself up, Harriet spits on the mattress before she arranges the bottom sheet. Marge won't notice a thing, of course, but Harriet feels better. When she finishes, she steals into her room to retrieve the Hogsmeade permission form and goes to find Petunia with it hidden behind her back.

 

Petunia is in the process of straightening the front room, her hands jerking intermittently. "What now?"

 

"Uh," Harriet begins, striving for firmness, "I need you to sign this." She shows her the parchment.

 

Petunia reads through it quickly. "Why should I?"

 

"Because I'll behave while Marge is here," Harriet replies, becoming more certain of herself as she goes. "This way, I'll be sort of happy at the start, so anything she says will just, you know, slide off my back."

 

Petunia is dubious. She examines the form again,  frowning in thought. "Fine," she says, harsh and cutting. "But don't you dare say a word of this to anyone." What she actually means: Don't brag about this to Dudley or Vernon.

 

"I won't," Harriet promises with conviction as Petunia scribbles her name at the bottom.

 

"Good girl." Petunia tosses the signed form at Harriet, who catches it reflexively. "Stay out of Marge's way. Don't provoke her."

 

"It's not like I try," Harriet mumbles sullenly. She skips upstairs and puts the Hogsmeade form into the pillowcase beneath the loose floorboard.

 

Marge is loud and takes up all available airspace within any room she enters. She stomps heavily across the threshold, thrusts her suitcase into Harriet's chest with a poisonous glare, and then greets Dudley and Petunia with equal parts effusiveness and dismissiveness respectively. "Dudley!" she booms. "You've grown." And she tucks a twenty-pound note into his hand. She gives Petunia a kiss on the cheek, which causes Petunia to squeeze her eyes shut.

 

The dog that chased Harriet up a tree when she was six clatters about,  drooling. Only Dudley seems not to mind.

 

The week drags by. Harriet does her best to keep out of the way, but Marge thoroughly enjoys insulting her. "Not doing a good enough job at that school of yours, are they?" is one of her favorite themes, during which she makes suggestions aplenty about how Harriet's school might handle her deviances and probable truancy better.

 

It's terrible. Harriet hates Marge, hates Vernon, hates—

 

She isn't the only one.

 

"What, she's your dead sister's brat, isn't she?" Marge snorts rhetorically after a second brandy after dinner on the last night, staring at Petunia through somewhat bloodshot eyes. "Suppose I shouldn't speak ill of the dead and all that superstitious rot, but if this is the pup, then the bitch should have been put down before she had a chance to breed."

 

Petunia's face goes deathly pale, and her worn-down hands clench. Oh, that's right. Petunia hates Marge more than she ever hated Harriet's mum. Harriet grimaces up at the ceiling.

 

"What're you smiling at?" Marge snaps. "You and your horrid ways. Hardly a proper girl, are you?"

 

"Never has been," Vernon agrees. "Prefers those rags to the nice things we'd like to see her in."

 

Marge nods, smirking in understanding. "Ungrateful brat. Fill 'er up again, Vernon," she says, holding out her glass.

 

Harriet can't take any more of this bullshit. She's on her feet before she realizes, feeling nothing beyond loathing and indignation. "I didn't ask to be here," she spits. "I didn't ask for you to insult my dead mother." Her hands are shaking. Something is hot and snarling beneath her skin, and she lets it go with a shudder. Marge stiffens, puts a hand to her mouth, and begins to gag.

 

"You're killing her!" Vernon shouts, jumping to his feet and making to grab for her. Harriet evades him easily. "Get out!" he splutters. "Get out of my sight this instant." Then Marge begins choking in earnest, and he forgets about Harriet.

 

Well, she can't stay here now. Her trunk smashes through the locked cupboard door, her possessions from upstairs landing in a heap beside her. Maybe distance will save Marge. Either way, Harriet has fucking (oh, thinking that word feels rebellious in the best way) had it!

Out the front door she goes and into the quiet August night.

 

Oh, fuck. She really, really hopes Marge doesn't die.

 

Harriet digs her wand out of her trunk and drags everything along the side of the road, completely out of ideas. She can't send a letter to anyone. Hedwig went out hunting earlier and had yet to return. There's a large, animal-shaped shadow on a retaining wall. Startled, Harriet nearly trips, thrusting her wand out to prevent it from breaking when she falls and—

 

BANG.

 

A triple-decker bus materializes in front of her. Well, she supposes with utter relief as she boards and pays the fare, guess that solves one of her problems.

 

"Harriet Potter!" a plump little man in a tasteless bowler hat calls as she exits the bus—a little nauseated by all the abrupt movement, but thrilled just the same—and stumbles toward the doorway of the Leaky Cauldron. The man looks vaguely familiar from pictures she's seen in the _Prophet_ , but she can't place him.

 

"Thank Merlin the Knight Bus picked you up," the man continues, grasping her upper arm and steering her inside. "Goodness knows what might have happened otherwise."

 

"Er, who are you?" Harriet asks, stiffening at his touch.

 

The man goes a bit pink and puts a hand to his hideous lime-green hat. "Cornelius Fudge, Minister of Magic, at your service."

 

"Nice to meet you," she says disingenuously.

 

"Yes, well, it's rather odd we haven’t met before now." He seems to ponder that for a moment, then leads her inside. "We have much to talk about and no time to waste."

 

Damn. She's going to be expelled and put in Azkaban, isn't she? Marge is dead, and they've found the body and oh god oh god—

 

Tom the barman unlocks a closed parlor and leaves the two of them a pot of tea. He smiles at Harriet as he goes, and she relaxes marginally.

 

Fudge pours their tea—adding more sugar to Harriet's than she likes—and leans back in his chair with a sigh. "Well, Harriet. May I call you Harriet?"

 

"I guess."

 

"Good, good." He fidgets, clears his throat a few times. "That was quite a nasty business with your aunt."

 

Harriet doesn't bother to explain that Marge isn't really her aunt. Wouldn't help her. "Is she all right?"

 

"Oh, yes. Whatever strangulation curse you cast had mostly faded by the time the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad arrived. It was just a nasty shock. Obliviators took care of her without a hitch."

 

"And what about me? What's going to happen?" Her voice is soft but steady.

 

"No punishment," Fudge says calmly. "Accidents do happen. That's what the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad exists for, after all."

 

She should have pointed out that that hadn't been the attitude a year ago when Dobby blew up the pudding, but she's too relieved and wrung out and just wants to sleep. "Where do I go now?"

 

"You'll be staying here until term starts. For your safety, there are some rules you must follow. Don't go into Muggle London, for one thing. Stay around Diagon Alley." Fudge coughs. "Well, just don't go anywhere you shouldn't. With Black on the loose, there's no need to take risks."

 

Oh, right. Sirius Black, the escaped convict the Knight Bus conductor had shown her an article about. Voldemort supporters, Morgana curse them. She assents, and ends up in a small room upstairs, all her things already brought up and Hedwig waiting on the wardrobe.

 

Staying at the Leaky Cauldron is like nothing Harriet has experienced before. She can get up when she pleases, go where she wants—mostly; she can do her summer homework out in the open—Florian Fortescue even gives her essay tips and free ice cream. She tries all the flavors because she can. She even starts mixing some of them in strange and exciting ways, much to Fortescue's delight.

 

But ogling the gleaming new Firebolt in the window of the Quidditch shop and wandering through the trinket shops and eating at the cafés gets boring after a while. Harriet takes her Invisibility Cloak out with her about a week after she arrives and ventures into Knockturn Alley. It's mostly the way she remembers it from when she got spit out of a fireplace last summer, except that there's a lot to see when she's not panicking. There's a bookshop with everything from ancient textbooks to histories of things Harriet's never heard of, such as _The Dark Side of Fantastic Beasts (and Where You Could Once Find Them)_.

 

There's a secondhand wand shop, which would happily purchase the wands of your defeated enemies, according to the hand-lettered sign.

 

And then, nestled beside the wand shop, is Soulmarks and You. Beneath the sign, a haphazard list of merchandise contains items like "concealing bracelets" and "enhancement kits". She gags at the idea of the latter, but a bracelet could be useful.

 

Harriet dithers about going inside. She shouldn't be here, and someone could make a fuss.

 

But Ginny—one person too many—has seen her soulmark. Harriet cannot let it happen again.

 

Harriet reluctantly slips her Invisibility Cloak into her bag and enters the shop, each step tentative. It's quiet and empty inside and smells faintly of new robes and peppermint. Harriet pats her bangs down over her scar and goes up to the counter. She coughs nervously.

 

The proprietor—olive-skinned, thirty-ish—glances up from a game of solitaire, which is played with unmistakably Muggle cards. "Good afternoon. Can I help you with anything?"

 

"I was wondering about your concealing bracelets. I've never heard of them before, and I think I need one."

 

"Muggle-born?" the shopkeeper asks, standing up and coming out from behind the counter with a friendly smile. He offers his hand for her to shake, which she does. "No need to be nervous," he says. "I'm Muggle-born, too. You're not the only one that comes in here without knowing these sorts of things are available."

 

"But Wizard-raised do?" she asks.

 

"Purebloods are my main customers," he admits, with a contented smirk. "Even the ones that despise Muggle-borns on principle."

 

"Good," Harriet says firmly.

 

"My Concealing Charms are second to none, and they know it." He begins a slow circuit of the shelves. "So, what sort of bracelet are you looking for? A ribbon that doesn't come untied, maybe? Something more fitted that you won't have to tie?"

 

"Definitely the second one," Harriet says.

 

"Ah, these beauties." He piles several small boxes in front of her. "They all do about the same thing, but some are a bit more thorough than others. People with half-marks want theirs to be overlooked, but not completely invisible." He eyes her. "You want something more than the basic half-mark concealment?"

 

"Yes. Best you got." She doesn't elaborate further.

 

He raises an eyebrow, but asks no questions as he opens two of the boxes. "I have other colors, if you like. Black and dark green are the most popular for some reason, though."

 

"Green," she says. "Please." It's her favorite color, and it matches her eyes.

 

"Good choice." He goes back behind the counter, cradling her box in his hand. "Comes to seven galleons."

 

"If— Please don't tell anyone I was here." She says it in a rush as she digs in her recently replenished coin purse.

 

He must have recognized her despite her hidden scar, because he nods without batting an eye. "I deal with Purebloods," he says reassuringly. "They don't like their secrets getting out."

 

"Thanks." Harriet pays the seven galleons and pockets the bracelet, then hurries back to her room at the Cauldron to put it on. It's made of a soft, lightweight material and is loose at first, but it adjusts itself to fit snugly. Harriet tosses her ragged old ribbon in the bin. It had been a hair ribbon, discarded by Petunia in a spot where she knew Harriet would find it. Not a gift, then, but something. Harriet still relishes the gulping sound the bin makes when the lid slams closed.

 

Ron and Hermione show up together at the Cauldron the day before term starts. "You've been enjoying yourself here," Hermione says quietly after Harriet's explained about Marge and running away. "You look happy."

 

Harriet blushes. "Yeah, it's been great."

 

Mr. and Mrs. Weasley get into a loud argument over whether to tell Harriet that Sirius Black is after her. Harriet hears them when she's going to fetch a bottle of rat tonic Ron left downstairs. Mrs. Weasley acts like this knowledge is something that should cause Harriet immense shock and anxiety. Why should it? And isn't Voldemort worse?

 

*

 

"There aren't any compartments left," Ron complains as he, Harriet, and Hermione drag their trunks down the train.

 

"There's just a sleeping, er, professor in here," Hermione says waspishly as she wrenches open the door of the very last one. "I doubt he'll mind us."

 

He doesn't wake as they arrange their trunks and pets. He doesn't wake as they study him, cataloguing his ragged robes and graying hair and beat-up briefcase, R. J. Lupin in slanting letters down its side. He doesn't wake when the trolley witch drops by.

 

He doesn't even wake when the temperature drops and the lights go out. "What's happening?" Hermione hisses.

 

"I'll b-bet it's something to do with B-Black," Ron says through chattering teeth. "My d-dad always said—"

 

Ginny falls through the compartment door. "Ron? Ron?" She sounds utterly petrified. Ron holds out a hand, and she tumbles against him. Hermione slides the door shut behind her.

 

The four of them sit freezing in the dark. The door opens again, slowly, deliberately. A towering, shadowy figure glides in. It is then, at the presence of the hulking, cloaked monstrosity, that Harriet begins to hear screaming and feel terrible, terrible pain. _"Not Harriet! Kill me instead!"_ The voice is unfamiliar yet not, and Harriet is falling, falling into a white fog…

 

She comes to on the compartment floor, her head resting in Hermione's lap. "Oh, you're awake," Hermione says, her relief palpable.

 

Harriet struggles to sit up. "What happened? What were those things? What was the pain and— and the screaming?"

 

"No one screamed," Hermione replies sharply.

 

"Yeah, mate," Ron says shakily. He and Ginny are huddled together on one of the seats. "Just all the cold and bad memories and—"

 

The door opens again, and the sleeping man from earlier—whose disappearance Harriet hadn't even noticed—strides in brusquely. "Ah, you've returned to us," he says, smiling at Harriet. "I'm Professor Lupin." He holds out half a chocolate bar, still in its paper. "Eat this. It will help. Merlin knows dementors are nasty, nasty things."

 

Harriet hesitantly takes the proffered chocolate, and Lupin passes out smaller pieces to the other three. He's right, she realizes as she takes a bite, warmth spreading through her. It does help.

 

Harriet receives her schedule at breakfast the next morning. Hagrid's name is listed prominently next to Care of Magical Creatures, and she smiles fondly at the sight. Arithmancy, her other elective—chosen after Hermione was Petrified and when Harriet was feeling lonelier than ever—does not excite her nearly as much.

 

"You could probably still switch to Divination," Ron says.

 

"Urgh, no," Harriet mutters. She's heard nothing good about Professor Trelawney and has no desire to find out what she might say about the effect of Harriet's soulmark upon her fate.

 

"Bloody hell, Hermione," Ron says, gaping at Hermione's schedule. It's not hard to figure out why. Some of her classes occur simultaneously.

 

"It's all fixed with Professor McGonagall," Hermione assures them, which is neither reassuring nor explanatory.

 

"Right," Ron says. "Your funeral."

 

"Oh, we'll see about that, Ronald," Hermione replies archly. "Some of us actually care about what comes after Hogwarts." The two of them pack up their things and head off to Divination, still bickering.

 

Harriet, all by herself, goes to Arithmancy. Inexplicably, Hermione is already there when she arrives. "Bloody hell," Harriet echoes Ron.

 

In Transfiguration, their next period, everyone is quiet and out of sorts. "What is wrong with all of you?" Professor McGonagall demands when only Harriet and Hermione applaud her Animagus transformation. "Usually the entire class applauds the cat."

 

"We've just come from Divination," Parvati says breathlessly.

 

"Ah, and whose death did Sybill predict?"

 

Neville squeaks.

 

Surprised, McGonagall looks over at Harriet. "Not taking Divination, Potter? No, of course you're not. I made your schedule myself. Smart girl. If only the rest of you weren't so easy to impress."

 

Harriet grins to herself.

 

In their first Care of Magical Creatures class, Harriet jinxes Malfoy before he can sabotage Hagrid's lesson by provoking a hippogriff into goring him. They both lose several points and get detentions with Filch, but it's probably better than whatever would have happened otherwise.

 

The first Defense lesson with the strange—and strangely kind—Professor Lupin is, well… It’s memorable, at the very least. They go on a field trip to the staff room, which is exciting in and of itself. And then they, er, learn something with clear real world application.

 

"Boggarts take the form of your worst fear," Lupin explains. "Now, before I let it out, please think of what your worst fear might be and try to make it amusing." Everyone's expressions mirror Harriet's dread.

 

Harriet waits her turn to face the Boggart with trepidation. It could be anything, even that dementor from the train. But she's pretty sure she knows better. Ron's now legless spider rolls in front of her, and she's stepping forward—

 

"No," Lupin says, maneuvering between her and the Boggart. Harriet darts around him. Ignorance is best sometimes, but not for this.

 

The shadow: formless, writhing, nearly invisible. Harriet sighs, but— the shadow is taking on a human shape, becoming more solid. The rest of the class watches with bated breath. Harriet's heart pounds. Tommie stands before her, with crimson eyes, her wrist extended and a triumphant smirk upon her lips.

 

"Ridikulus!" Harriet shouts before anyone can get a better look at the unmistakable soulmark, and Tommie dissolves once more into a ball of quivering darkness. There's only so much Harriet can do to make any of this funny.

 

Hermione, next to Harriet, is the last to go. Her Boggart is Harriet, turned determinedly away. When Hermione turns the never-Harriet into Crookshanks and Lupin forces it back into the wardrobe (it becomes a silvery orb as he does), Harriet and Hermione silently agree never to discuss it.

 

"Was your Boggart—?” Hermione begins after the class blessedly ends and the two of them have fled to their dorm to take a much-needed break before dinner.

 

"I don't want to talk about it." And she never will.

 

"You have to sometime, don't you?" Hermione protests. "If it was You-know-Who, then—"

 

"You're not talking about how you're getting to all your classes," Harriet replies caustically.

 

"I _can't_ talk about it. Professor McGonagall made me promise." Hermione touches something at her throat.

 

"Not yet," Harriet says finally. "I'll tell you. Just… later."

 

"I think Professor Lupin's was the moon," Hermione blurts.

 

"The moon?" Harriet repeats, confused. "Who's afraid of the moon?" Harriet loves the moon. Seeing it at night means she isn't in her cupboard, which still hasn't lost its novelty.

 

"Werewolves," Hermione guesses. "Or people who worship it, maybe. Fear of God or Goddess or whatever."

 

"Oh, er, okay." Instinctively, Harriet thinks the former possibility is more likely. Could just be Lupin's scars or general state of exhaustion or something.

 

Hermione's new cat and Ron's old rat are declared enemies, their feud borne out through frantic chases and hissing. Ron thinks there's something weird about Crookshanks's persistent attempts to catch Scabbers. Harriet and Hermione both believe it's perfectly normal. Naturally, there are arguments aplenty throughout the term, arguments of such frequency and volume that all of Gryffindor hears every sordid detail. Harriet tries to stay between them, but sometimes they get to be so frustrating that she abandons them to it for her own sanity.

 

"That poor cat," Ginny says to Harriet one night in mid October. "If he does kill Scabbers, then he will have done us all a favor."

 

"Yeah." Harriet should feel some guilt about agreeing, but she's never felt anything approaching fondness for Scabbers. She's never understood quite why.

 

"Miss Potter, speak with me after class," McGonagall says when she's finished collecting signed Hogsmeade forms. Harriet had passed hers in with as much excitement as everyone else, but at these words, her heart sinks. If they don't let her go because of the whole Sirius Black thing, then Petunia would certainly be pleased. Harriet has no intention of telling her.

 

"I'm sorry, Potter," McGonagall begins when the room has emptied. (What a terrible way to start a conversation.) "Given this whole mess with Sirius Black, we believe it is best for you to stay at the castle while your classmates go to Hogsmeade. Just until he's caught, you understand."

 

"Right," Harriet says, her face hot and eyes stinging. "Right. I kind of expected it."

 

"He'll be caught soon, I'm sure," McGonagall says too brightly, giving Harriet a placating pat on the shoulder. "I, for one, am glad you got a signature in the first place." She purses her lips in apparent distaste.

 

"Everything's fine at home," Harriet says defensively—not because it is, but because she doesn't want to talk about it, as per usual. "Why wouldn't I have gotten a signature, professor?"

 

McGonagall casts her eyes upward, her expression going more pinched. "No reason, Potter. You're dismissed."

 

Harriet wanders the school disconsolately on Halloween. The common room is full of first and second years. Ginny had invited her to play Gobstones with some friends, but Harriet couldn't stomach their anticipation for the Halloween feast and fled. No one is in the corridors.

 

Lupin invites her in for tea. He says he went to school with her parents. Harriet has no idea what to do with that. Why is she only meeting him now? Where was he before? Not while she was growing up, necessarily, but when she'd reentered magic society—or whatever the fuck they called it. How hard could it have been to send a letter? Meet in Diagon Alley, even. But she keeps these questions to herself and silently drinks her tea.

 

Harriet manages to enjoy the entire feast this year. It's not until afterward that everything goes to holiday-typical hell.

 

"But how did Black get in?" Harriet overhears McGonagall from her spot between Ron and Hermione on the floor of the Great Hall, to which the entire school has been consigned. "How could he have gotten past the dementors?"

 

"I have many theories," Dumbledore replies, "each more unlikely than the last."

 

"I would expect," Snape drawls, "that he has an accomplice." To Harriet's disappointment, both McGonagall and Dumbledore hush him and lead him away.

 

"I'm as safe in Hogsmeade as I am in Hogwarts," Harriet tells McGonagall on Monday. "Can I please go next time?"

 

"No," she replies, frazzled and put-upon.

 

Quidditch, once again, fails to make anything better. Their first match is against Slytherin, and not only is the weather horrific, but dementors show up partway through. Harriet, already shivering from the heavy rain, can do nothing as she is devoured by the white mist and the pain and—

 

_"Lily, it's her. Take Harriet and run. I'll hold her off."_

 

_"Not Harriet! Kill me instead!"_

 

_"Step aside."_ The third voice is familiar in ways the other two are not. It is harsh and it is grating and it is laden with the same agony that Harriet feels.

 

They lose the match, and Harriet can't even find it in herself to care about Malfoy's gloating. Her broom is a pile of splinters, and she heard her mother die. And worst of all, she had heard _her_.

 

Reluctantly, Harriet asks Lupin to teach her how to defend against dementors. "It's the least I can do," he tells her. "I warn you, though. It won't be easy."

 

"I don't care," Harriet says. "I have to know."

 

She sneaks into Hogsmeade before Christmas with help from a magic-infused map Fred and George gave her. Hogsmeade is pituresque and brilliant, and not even overhearing that Sirius Black was her godfather and betrayed her parents to Voldemort can make her regret going.

(Why should it?)

 

Christmas is, once again, notable. One of her inordinate number of presents is, potentially, cursed (by Sirius Black, Hermione guesses).

 

Harriet stares at the hovering Firebolt in awe, reaching out to run a finger along the handle, gently counting the twigs in its tail.

 

"I believe you," Harriet says firmly to Hermione, remembering Hermione's worst fear only too well. She sadly puts the Firebolt back into its parchment as best she can.

 

"You— you do?" Hermione asks, lightening.

 

"Of course," Harriet replies. "Let's not tell Ron." She feels a twinge of guilt. Ron deserves better friends.

 

Hermione slumps in relief.

 

McGonagall takes the Firebolt for "stripping down" and assures them that they've done the right thing. Harriet hopes so. If they lose their match with Ravenclaw, then they won't win the Cup (again), and Wood will blame her.

 

Harriet assuages her guilt over not telling Ron about the Firebolt by talking about Hermione. "She's going to burn out completely," she says over a lazy game of chess, when Hermione's in their dorm studying frantically for next term. "Haven't you noticed?"

 

"Dunno," Ron mutters. "Her cat's a menace."

 

"What, so she deserves to be overwhelmed like this?" Harriet fires back.

 

"No, that's not what I—"

 

Harriet pushes away from the table and storms out the portrait hole. The only improvement from a year ago, she decides as she walks, is that she's not the lonely one. Other than that, though, everything is utter shite.

 

“No magic in the corridors, Potter!” Snape calls as she flings a curse at a blank spot of wall. “Ten points from Gryffindor.”

 

Yeah, utter shite.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, yes, it's been almost six months, but here it is. Thanks to Red for all her suggestions and encouragement. I wouldn't have made this far without her.<3

As she sleeps, she dreams. There are flashes of memories that belong to another: gazing into a mirror, fleeing from unknown pursuers, a snowy owl, the gravely lined face of Albus Dumbledore. (Ire stirs at the last image, ire and a whimper, for what if he were to find her here?)

 

She can only observe, an audience to a play. These are not her memories, but she recognizes something in them. She cannot place what, and the mystery is almost enough to rouse her fully from Naga's rest.

 

But merely almost. It is not time yet.

 

*

 

Wood accosts Harriet the night before classes start up again. "Potter!" he pants. "Have you ordered a new broom yet? Or figured out something for the dementor thing? We can't lose the next match, you know. If we do..." He finally stops for breath, flushed.

 

"I know, Oliver," Harriet says. "I'll have a new broom in time, I think." Optimism to get him to go away.

 

"What sort?" Wood presses. "Nimbus Two Thousand and One? Probably good to make a step up. Cleansweep could be all right, but our final match could be against Slytherin again if we win against Ravenclaw..."

 

"Something like that, yeah." If she tells him about the Firebolt. Well…Ron will hear about it, and she doesn't want to get anyone's hopes up, especially her own.

 

Harriet's dementor defense lessons start the first week after classes are back in session. Harriet arrives early, a good five minutes before Lupin shows up. She paces outside the locked classroom, arms crossed. Lupin arrives promptly at seven, floating a large packing case in front of him. "Been waiting long?" he asks.

 

"No," Harriet mumbles.

 

"Wonderful." He unlocks the door and motions her inside, smiling encouragingly.

 

"The first thing," Professor Lupin begins, floating the case to the spot of floor in front of Binns's desk, "is that we find a believable simulation of a dementor. Millicent?"

 

Bulstrode, the girl who put Hermione in a headlock at the Dueling Club last year, stomps in behind him, glowering. Harriet blinks, too confused to offer a proper greeting. She hadn't noticed her in the hall.

 

"I don't want to be here, Potter," Bulstrode says immediately. "I'm getting extra credit?" Lupin nods.

 

For what? Harriet bites back.

 

Bulstrode has cut her hair close to her head, Harriet notices idly. It's an oddly striking look on her. It used to hang about her face, but with it gone, there is almost a maturity—or the hint of it—in the squareness of her jaw and the slope of her forehead. Harriet touches her own flyaway locks and feels quite childish in comparison.

 

"Fine," Harriet mutters, looking away. "I don't care."

 

"Good."

 

"Millicent has kindly volunteered to lend you her Boggart," Professor Lupin explains. "It isn't a real dementor, of course—my job and your safety aren't worth sneaking one of those into the school—but it should be near enough." He directs Bulstrode to stand closest to the case. "Now, let us begin. The incantation is expecto patronum, and the wand movement is thus." He demonstrates, a flowing, sweeping motion across the front of his body, finishing it with a decisive jab. "Give it a couple tries. You, too, Millicent, since you're here."

 

"Oh, so I get more than extra points out of this." She seems rather more interested now.

 

"Chocolate, too," Lupin says, sighing.

 

Harriet and Bulstrode practice the incantation, neither of them achieving much of a result beyond a puff of silver vapor. The wand movements feel strange and clunky, and Harriet finds herself readjusting her grip. "That's a good start," Lupin encourages. "In order to conjure a true Patronus, you must summon the happiest memory you can. Think about it deeply. Let it fill you up. Let it be the only thing going through your mind."

 

Harriet tries to come up with something. Surprisingly, it isn't difficult.

 

The very first time she realized she had a soulmate—before she knew anything about the Wizarding World or about who her soulmate was. She had something Dudley didn't, something he couldn't beat her up and take from her, the way he had her favorite sock doll (one of the socks she'd nicked from Uncle Vernon and then drawn a face on).

 

"Ready?" Lupin asks. They both nod, gripping their wands. He opens the case, and the dark and cold is instantaneous. Harriet stumbles back, tries to remember what memory she decided upon, tries to remember the wand movement— _Soulmate_ , she thinks. But soulmate summons nothing now of her first joy. There is only cold. She falters, her wand drooping in her suddenly tired, tired hand, the faint screaming and pain beginning to stir in her periphery senses.

 

" _Ridikulus_!" Lupin shouts. The dementor becomes the moon orb and is forced with much willful bouncing back into its case. Harriet finds that her knees have buckled, and she sits in a loose heap upon the floor. Bulstrode crouches nearby, shivering.

 

"That was—" Lupin sighs. "That was certainly good for a first attempt."

 

Both of them snort weakly.

 

"This is difficult magic. Don't get discouraged. Although if you would like to stop for the day—"

 

"No," they say.

 

He sighs again. "Then perhaps you should try a different memory. Harriet, what was yours?"

 

"I don't want to say." She puts a hand over her wrist and studies a spiderweb in the corner of the blackboard.

 

"You have a soulmate, Potter?" Bulstrode is watching her closely, one of her chestnut brows raised.

 

Harriet shakes her head, mute. Bulstrode, to her relief, doesn't press further.

 

Lupin appears prepared to ask a question of his own, then seems to decide against it. "Millicent, how about you? What was your memory?"

 

"The day I met my dad," Bulstrode mutters. "Guess it wasn't all that happy. He wasn't—" She stops, frowns at Lupin like it's all his fault she's said so much, then bends her head and slides her wand between her fingers. There's a chip near the handle, Harriet notices. She wonders if it's second-hand.

 

"Well," Lupin says, a little awkward. "Both of you may want to try something else. Unhappy memories aren't ideal for trying to cast patroni with. The results can be unpredictable, ."

 

“Unpredictable…how?” Bulstrode wonders.

 

“Never mind that now. Keep thinking of a memory.”

 

"Okay." Harriet racks her brain for anything else. She shies away from when she found out she was a witch, since it's so tied up with her soulmate. Maybe flying. That fills her, enough, hopefully.

 

And maybe there's an improvement. Harriet stays on her feet, the pain and screaming slightly fainter than they were the first time.

 

"I think that's enough for tonight," Lupin says, forcing the Boggart back into its case once more. Harriet collapses into a chair. Bulstrode gives her a look, then does the same. She'd been far more successful, Harriet thinks. Hadn't frozen up; just started casting.

 

Lupin hands them both chocolate frogs. "Same time next week?" he asks, hesitant. "I would understand if you didn't want to try again."

 

"I'm not giving up," Harriet replies, her voice firm. She sounds more certain than she feels.

 

"How did it go?" Hermione asks as soon as Harriet returns to the common room. She's got a stack of books in front of her high enough to hide her face behind. Harriet peers over the stack at her.

 

"Not well," Harriet mutters. The book on the top has diagrams of electrical wiring that give Harriet a headache just by glancing at them. "Bulstrode was there. She picked it up faster than I did." The only thing she was good at was Quidditch, she thinks, and with the possibility of dementors and no broom to call her own, she doesn't even have that.

 

"Are you going to go back? You should, if you're considering not going."

 

"I know that!" Harriet snaps, causing Hermione to start and set her pile of books to teetering, looking hurt. She tries to soften her tone. "I have to learn it. Bulstrode can get roasted by one of Hagrid's firecrabs, for all I care."

 

"That's not very nice," Hermione says sharply. "She's done nothing to you."

 

Harriet nods. "She's really not terrible, but she doesn't help."

 

Ron has been spending time with Dean and Seamus. He sits with them at meals and in the common room at night, but from what Harriet can see, the two of them do most of the talking, while he sits in morose silence, doodling on his homework.

 

"Ron!" she says, approaching him as he's getting up to go to bed.

 

"What?"

 

"How are you?" It’s not the right question, but she doesn't know where else to start.

 

"I dunno, mate," he says. "Can't complain." His voice is strained, and one of his ears is slowly, slowly turning red.

 

Harriet can't meet his eye. The guilt of her deception makes her stomach churn. But if she tells him now, nearly a month after the Firebolt was received...

 

"I miss you," she admits.

 

"Well, you can tell Hermione that her cat is a menace, and I wish she'd keep a better eye on it." They both watch as Hermione drops a large numerology off her table and dives frantically to retrieve it. She's gone red in the face while turning pages at an alarming rate. "This isn't even the right book!" she loudly mutters. "How did I forget?"

 

"What book do you need?" Ron and Harriet approach, prepared to help her dig it out from the mess.

 

"I don't know! I think it was a book from the library, and I never checked it out!" At this, she starts crying in earnest. The rest of the common room bends their heads together, not looking at Hermione. Harriet and Ron look at each other, then each put a hand on her shoulders. The three of them stay like that for a moment, and it's almost like the last month hasn't happened. Hermione shudders under their touch, hiccupping.

 

"Maybe you should drop a class," Ron suggests. Harriet nods in vigorous agreement.

 

"No!" Hermione snaps and shakes them both off.

 

The Firebolt is still undergoing tests. Harriet is sure Hermione was right about it; she reminds herself frequently. But it still hurts, and Wood is frustrated and persistent—Harriet even dreams of him one night, begging her to order a new broom from the middle of a field that goes on forever, that he's ordered the entire team to do laps around. "I will," she pants, "soon."

 

"We don't have until 'soon.' We don't even have until 'now!'" At which point copies of _Which Broomstick_ begin falling from the sky, and Harriet has to change the direction of her run to avoid them, which she fails at, and ends up in a pile up to her knees.

 

When she wakes up, her mouth dry, she remembers he said that exact line to her at least twice that week.

 

Harriet sometimes goes back to Myrtle's bathroom to cry, Hermione's flight book tucked under her arm. Myrtle is always happy to see her.

 

"I died in that stall," she says with relish. "Maybe you will, too. Then we can stay here, together. You even have glasses! It couldn't be more perfect."

 

"Myrtle," Harriet sighs, trying to hold in either laughter or whimpers. "If I die, I wouldn't want to spend my after-death with anyone but you."

 

Better dead, anyway, than a lifetime with—that is, if she doesn’t kill Harriet first.

 

Myrtle beams, her eyes filling with silvery tears, then dives back into her toilet. Harriet has never heard her cry in joy.

 

Some nights, Harriet almost dreams. Well, no. She dreams plenty—too much, when Wood and Quidditch are involved. But some of her dreams feel more like distant impressions, like faint stirrings—of what, she can't tell. There is no peace to be found here. It is tense and anticipatory, for return, a waking. In the mornings, she is filled with dread, a dread that clogs her throat and makes her weak and jittery.

 

None of this helps her in the Patronus lessons. Bulstrode progresses to large puffs of smoke by the second session, and to a hovering cloud by the third. Harriet can only manage wisps, after which she is distracted by her mother's pleading and, during the lesson following one of her terrifying phantom dreams, her father's panicked shouting.

 

"What is it you hear?" Lupin asks, sending Bulstrode on her way with congratulations and extra chocolate. She goes reluctantly, looking back at Harriet with frank curiosity. Harriet, while annoyed, can't blame her.

 

"My parents and…and Voldemort," Harriet whispers.

 

Lupin nods. "I thought as much. Dementors force us to recall the most awful of our experiences. I can't think of much worse than witnessing your parents' murder, even if you were so young."

 

"I haven't learned enough," Harriet says bitterly. "I'm not ready for Saturday's game." She still didn't have a broom, either.

 

"I doubt the dementors will dare show up this time." Lupin rubs his forehead. He's more frayed and exhausted-looking than ever. Hermione had been marking dates on a lunar chart in one of her arithmancy notebooks. Each of his absences coincided with the full moon, as she predicted it would. Harriet doesn't really care about that right now.

 

There is something in Lupin's expression that is too soft. It's not pity so much as—grief. It's quick; if she hadn't been watching him so closely, she would have missed it. And so, without thinking, she asks, "Did you know them? My parents?"

 

"I did."

 

"And Sirius Black, too?"

 

He nods again, wearier than ever. "We were friends, you know. Your father and Black and Peter Pettigrew. I don't know where it all went so wrong."

 

They sit in silence, lost in thought. What if Ron or Hermione betrayed her to Voldemort? Harriet doesn't believe either of them would, but her dad probably didn't think Black would when they were in their third year, either. (And the three of them aren't really friends at the moment, are they?) If—when? —Voldemort returns, would things change between them? (But at the mere thought of Voldemort returning to a body, Harriet feels a chill, bone-deep.)

 

"Well," Lupin says, his voice too chipper. "You've had a difficult lesson tonight." He hands her more chocolate and a bottle of butterbeer. "That's from Hogsmeade. Don't mention to anyone that I gave it to you." He winks. She forces a smile.

 

“I don’t know how much more I can teach you,” he says as she makes to leave.

 

“Yeah.”

 

“We’ll see what happens at Saturday’s game, and go from there.”

 

She nods again.

 

On her way back to Gryffindor Tower, Harriet drinks the butterbeer. It's just as good at room temperature as it is hot, and it fills her with feelings of optimism and goodwill. She ducks behind a suit of armor on the portrait corridor to finish the rest.

 

"Potter! There you are!" As Harriet emerges, hiding the empty bottle in her pocket, Professor McGonagall sweeps toward her. "I've been looking for you, but you weren't in the tower when I arrived."

 

"Sorry," Harriet says, her hands going sweaty.

 

"No matter. And here you are." McGonagall holds something out to Harriet, who isn't quite sure what she's seeing for a moment. It gleams in the torchlight, the twigs smooth and straight, not a scratch to be seen.

 

"The Firebolt?" And she's reaching out for it, still disbelieving.

 

"Yes. We couldn't find anything wrong with it." McGonagall shakes her head, mystified. "You have a very good friend out there, Potter. Now, please win that match."

 

"I will, professor," Harriet says, grinning.

 

The evening would have been perfect, afterward, if not for one thing.

 

Ron. When Harriet carries in the Firebolt, his mouth drops open, and he's the first in the crowd to run toward her. "Circe, what?" he says.

 

Hermione, at her usual table, looks up briefly, then goes back to her reading. Ron notices her lack of surprise.

 

"I got it for Christmas," Harriet admits. "Hermione thought Black sent it, so some of the professors inspected it and—" His ears have turned red.

 

"Why didn't you tell me?"

 

Her stomach twists. "I'm sorry," she says.

 

He gazes back at Hermione. "You didn't want me to be more annoyed with her, was that it?"

 

"Yeah." Leave it to Ron, to understand her reasoning before she knows how to explain it herself.

 

"If you let me fly it first, I'll forgive you." He grins. "A Firebolt, mate! I've never even touched one." She passes it to him, and he cradles it.

 

"Ron, stop hogging the Firebolt! We all want to touch it!" Fred leans over Ron's shoulder. Wood pushes past him.

 

"Captain before Beater," George quips, giving Fred a sympathetic pat.

 

"Potter!" Wood's bouncing on his feet. "This is amazing! Why didn't you tell me? Never mind. Extra-long practice tomorrow! The Slytherins will lose their shit when they see it. The Ravenclaws are toast!" He continues on in this vain. Harriet tunes him out. she goes off to bed a half hour later with a lighter heart.

 

But in the morning, when Ron storms down the stairs, brandishing a bloodstained sheet and blaming Crookshanks for rat murder ("the most egregious crime," Fred says wisely), she's back to her misery.

 

Ron is insufferable and depressed, and no amount of sympathetic looks seem to help. “I get to fly before you practice?" he asks more than once throughout the day.

 

"Yes, of course."

 

On her other side, Hermione sniffs indignantly.

 

"What? Think I shouldn't be allowed to ride it because of your cat?" Ron snaps. "My rat is dead! What the hell did I do?"

 

"No. Why would I think that, Ron?" Hermione is ready to cry. "I'm sorry about Scabbers. I don't think Crookshanks killed him, that's all."

 

“Hmmpf." Ron sits with his arms folded, head hanging. "I still get to ride the Firebolt first?"

 

"If you want Hooch to watch," Harriet says, rolling her eyes.

 

*

 

In the lineup of Ravenclaw players, Harriet's attention is caught by her fellow Seeker. She's about Harriet's height. Her hair hangs heavy down her back. When she senses Harriet's stare, she looks up and grins. Harriet feels a stirring in her chest. Huh, she thinks. She hasn't ever felt like this before (except for Tommie, in the depths of last year's isolation, before she knew who Tommie really was…and she's not thinking about that).

 

The match is an exciting blur. The Firebolt is unparalleled, responding to Harriet's errant thoughts, it seems. And Cho is —well, Harriet nearly misses the snitch at least twice because she's watching her progress instead. But she does catch it in the end, with the added bonus of failed Slytherin sabotage.

 

"What were you thinking?" McGonagall shouts at Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, and Flint, tangled in long black robes. All four of them are still in some measure of shock. Harriet grins at them. She doesn’t think they notice, given that they’re all rather busy sniping at each other.

 

Bulstrode accosts her as she's leaving the Quidditch changing rooms. "I didn't know you could do that," she says.

 

"Do what? Fly?" Harriet retorts. "The Firebolt is like a dream, by the way. Can't wait to kick Malfoy's arse on it."

 

Bulstrode shakes her head. "I don't care about the bloody broom. I'm talking about the way you cast a Patronus like that, you idiot. It had a shape and everything. Mine's never done."

 

Harriet hadn't gotten a good look at it. "What sort of shape?"

 

"A deer, I think. It had antlers. Four legs. What the hell were you thinking about?"

 

The Firebolt, and Cho. Escape. Freedom. Hell if she knows. "Couldn't tell you," she replies evasively.

 

"Wonder if you could do it again," Bulstrode mutters. "You know, with actual Dementors. Maybe it was just luck."

 

Harriet glares. "We'll see about that." Although she rather hopes they don't have to.

 

The celebration in the Gryffindor common room goes on late into the night. Fred and George keep them supplied in sweets, some from Honeydukes (“You know I hate acid pops!” Ron complains), some from the kitchens (“Ginger broomsticks? Who has the time?”). There's booze, too, though Percy and the rest of the prefects make so many threats of telling Professor McGonagall that most below fifth year don't dare try any (Katie Bell is the exception, Harriet hears later, and since she's on the team no one wants anything to happen to her).

 

McGonagall shows up some time after one—in slippers and a dressing gown, her hair out of its usual bun—because of all the noise and orders them to bed. "If I have to come in a second time," she says, "I'm taking all the points the Quidditch team just won." They scatter pretty quickly after that.

 

Sirius Black must have forgotten Harriet's a girl, because he breaks into the boys' dormitories and threatens Ron with a knife. Ron's scream wakes the boys, and the noise out in the common room wakes the girls. Harriet and Hermione try to get through the crowd to Ron, but he is closely surrounded by terrified well-wishers. McGonagall returns, two-hundred-point subtraction on her lips. "What did I tell you?"

 

"Professor!" Ron whimpers. "Sirius Black was in my dorm. With a knife. Cut through the curtains."

 

"What?" Which commences the firing of the Fat Lady's replacement and a host of new security measures.

 

Ron enjoys the fame, at least. Harriet's just confused. Had Azkaban messed with Black's mind so much that he didn't remember anything about the child he was trying to kill?

 

*

 

The next Hogsmeade weekend, Harriet goes against Hermione's pleas. Ron, forever in favor of some handy, justified rule-breaking, is terribly supportive. "Can't wait to show you all the things you didn't see last time! The quill shop, the fancy robe shop—"

 

"What?" Harriet interrupts. "You went in a robe shop for fun?"

 

Ron sighs, aggrieved. "I like browsing robe shops. Anyway, and you can see the Shrieking Shack. Most haunted building in Britain."

 

"Well," Hermione says waspishly, "I hope you're at least planning to take your permission form again. But you really shouldn't go."

 

Harriet pats her robe pocket. "Got it right here, with the Map. This pocket has everything I could possibly need."

 

Hermione frowns. "I have too much homework. I can't go with you."

 

Harriet loves all of it. The robes at Dervish and Banges are, in some cases, like nothing she's ever imagined. Extra pleats, strange colors, precious metals in the hems, weird flares. "See what I mean?" Ron says, grinning at her. "You never know what Malfoy types will do next."

 

Harriet's a bit underwhelmed by the Shrieking Shack. It's just an old battered house at the top of a small scrubby hill. There's no sign of haunting, far as she knows, and she spends time with Myrtle. She doesn't tell Ron this.

 

When Malfoy and several of his friends show up, she throws bits of mud from under the safety of her Cloak. Wankers deserve it, after the stunt they pulled at the Quidditch game. And it’s all going quite dandy until Malfoy steps on the hem of her Cloak. Cue shock and a startled scream from Goyle (whose voice hasn't fully broken yet).

 

"You'd better get out of here," Ron whispers. "He'll go to Snape, and you'll be in detention till you’re as old and cranky as my Auntie Muriel." She hares off to the castle without looking back, running as fast as she can while keeping the Cloak in place. By the time she reaches the slope of the passageway and skids down, she's taking huge, futile breaths and her heart pounds fast enough that she's afraid of something like cardiac arrest. (Hell if she knows what that is. It's a term often bandied about on Petunia's favorite daytime soapy medical drama.)

 

Snape meets her in the same corridor as the statue of the humpbacked, one-eyed witch, as if he'd been expecting her. Maybe it wasn't as secret as Fred and George claimed.

 

"With me, Potter," Snape hisses. She doesn't protest. He leads her to his office, a room that resembles him in tone and temper with its dim lighting and shelves lined with a mix of writhing potion ingredients and what look to be pickled animals. All the dead frogs and such are useful for something, she's sure, but he's arranged them for effect. The most horrific of them is most prominently displayed, its bulbous eyes fixed on the precise spot she must sit.

 

"Potter," Snape says, pacing around her, his robes billowing about his feet with each jerky step.

 

"Yes, sir?" Her voice is tremulous and scratchy. She tries to clear her throat without his noticing, but the faint noise turns his head back to her, and he scowls.

 

"The Shrieking Shack is not haunted, no matter what foolish legends have been gossiped about by schoolchildren." And there is true rage in his voice, a rage directed far beyond Harriet's stupid prank. Wow. She really must have struck a nerve somewhere.

 

"Empty your pockets, Potter," he says. "If you were not in Hogsmeade causing mischief, then complying shouldn't be a problem for you."

 

"Yes, sir." Harriet's resigned. He has almost no cause to suspect her, and she has no reasonable defense that won't reveal her, er, perfectly justified misstep. So she starts piling things onto his desk, feeling oddly free as each of her Zonko's purchases strike the desktop, as a Fizzing Whizbee wrapper flutters to the floor. Petunia's signed permission form lands somewhere in the middle, rather tattered. The blank Marauder's Map flutters after it.

 

Snape picks up the permission form with a pinched frown, going cross-eyed as he studies the signature. Harriet is almost inclined to thin he doesn’t bother reading the rest of it. "Do you mean to say that you broke no rules, Potter? Because the entire staff agreed that it would be for the best if you did not go. And, given that while you are here, we have guardianship over you…"

 

"It isn't fair," Harriet says. "If Black can get into the school without anyone knowing, then what makes Hogsmeade so much more dangerous?"

 

There is a brief flash of something in Snape's face, and she thinks it might be surprise. "That is both logical and irrelevant," he says, his lips pursed in an expression that makes Harriet think of Petunia, and oh that is not an image she can stand: Petunia with Snape's hair.

 

"But the form was signed!" Harriet retorts, hotly. "I should be able to go."

 

"Must I repeat myself, Potter? The staff agreed that it would be best for you to remain here, and while you are under our care, we have the duty to make these decisions." He pinches his nose. He folds the form in half, then in quarters, then tucks it away in his desk. Harriet almost asks if she can have it back, then thinks better of it. "Now cease this nonsense and get out of my sight." He throws the Map at her. "And never let me see this again."

 

Harriet doesn't understand any of it. Why would Snape just let her off with hardly more than a reprimand? He hadn't even demanded to know what the Map was, despite the strangeness of caring around an old, blank piece of parchment—

 

"Potter, come back!"

 

Well, there goes that. Harriet drags her feet back to Snape's open door. He holds his hand out imperiously. "That blank piece of parchment," he snaps. "I would like to see it." Reluctantly, she hands it over.

 

"Now you may go." He holds the map with just the tips of his fingers, as if it may explode or bite him. Harriet scarpers.

 

Harriet assumed this would be the end of the entire affair; that, failing to get the map to show him anything, Snape would discard it. As it turned out, he did no such thing. After Defense on Monday, Lupin asks for her to stay after. "Severus gave me a suspicious artefact that he claimed was in your possession and recommended I take a look at it."

 

"It's nothing," Harriet says. "Just parchment."

 

He sighs through his nose. "I doubt it, but I admire your tenacity. I'd like to finish having a look at it."

 

"Can I have it back when you're done?" If he had been any other professor, she would not have dared ask. Maybe this would be like the Firebolt, and he would find nothing.

 

But Lupin shakes his head. "We'll see, but likely no. We can't have you sneaking around, now can we?" He winks.

 

He knows what it is already, somehow. She's sure of it. "Okay," Harriet says and leaves.

 

The final Quidditch match comes upon them quickly. Wood's practices have stretched late and started at dawn on weekends, and Harriet's honestly a little worried about him. He spends evenings in the common room checking and re-checking charts, outlining scenarios that most of the team falls asleep to.

 

"Don't you have NEWTs to worry about?" Harriet hears Percy ask him one night. Wood throws his quill, spattering ink on Percy's sweater. Percy glowers ferociously and stalks off.

 

Oliver’s obsessiveness, however, pays off in spades, and even Percy doesn’t seem to be all that disappointed when Gryffindor beats Hufflepuff by two hundred and thirty points. Harriet spots him collecting a large stack of Galleons from a sour-looking group of Ravenclaws.

 

*

 

"I think something happened after my Divination final," Ron says in a daze.

 

"What sort of thing?" Harriet asks, picking at her food. Something had felt wrong all day. Not her exams. They'd gone as well as she'd expected. Something akin to her not-dreams.

 

"It was weird," Ron says. His food is untouched, which catches Harriet's attention more than the anxiety in his voice. "Trelawney just sort of went batty, more than usual. Her eyes back in her head like this." He demonstrates. It's kind of horrific. "Then her voice went all spooky-like. And she said something about the master’s servant going to rejoin her, to help her return more powerful than ever before." He shivers. "I think it was You-Know-Who. 'The master' and 'return' and—" He cuts off. "I think I'll have nightmares."

 

"Poppycock!" Hermione says. "Trelawney is a fraud. Everyone knows that." Hermione certainly seemed to think so, given that she’d dropped Divination by storming out just before the Easter holidays.

 

Harriet isn't so sure. "What happened after?"

 

"She blinked like she was coming out of some sort of trance. She didn't remember it, or said she didn't."

 

They go to Hagrid's for tea—under the Invisibility Cloak, since the grounds are still forbidden—to celebrate the end of exams. Hagrid is quite relaxed. He greets them with his usual "no one saw you?" to which they assure him no one did. His first year of teaching has gone very well indeed. There were no particularly horrifying incidents, no serious injuries.

 

They eat rock cakes, dipped in tea to soften them. As they sit at the table, Ron beginning to tell Hagrid about Trelawney's prediction, when they catch sight of something rather odd. Within one of the open cupboards, a spare milk bottle begins to wobble out of its spot and teeters at the edge of its shelf. "What's happening there?" Harriet asks.

 

Hermione jumps up to catch the bottle, but it falls to the floor and shatters before she can reach it. "What in blazes?" Hagrid peers down at the pile of shards. There is a scampering—

 

"Scabbers!" Ron cries, diving to catch the wriggling blur of gray. Harriet and Hermione look quickly at each other, then down at Ron, who somehow gets a grip on the not-dead-after-all rat's tail. Scabbers keeps running as Ron lifts him up, his paws scrabbling uselessly in mid-air. Then he turns his head and begins frantic biting, his squeaks shrill. "Ouch! Bloody hell!" Ron forces Scabbers into his breast pocket and holds it shut. "What is wrong with him?"

 

"Something around he doesn't like," Hagrid guesses. "Wonder how long he's been hiding here."

 

"No!" Ron puts his hand to his chest, but Scabbers claws his way free, streaking through the crack beneath the front door.

 

"Huh," Hagrid muses. "I should do something about that. Add some weather-stripping."

 

Ron wrenches the door open and rushes after his fleeing pet. Harriet and Hermione follow at a much slower pace, neither of them quite as invested in getting a dull, unaffectionate pet back. (Especially one that contributed to so many needless arguments.)

 

"What if someone sees us?" Harriet hisses. "We're not supposed to be out here!" She throws the Cloak over both of them. Ron, rather far away, has caught Scabbers and holds his paws together so as to prevent him from scratching. "Can't believe he isn't dead!" he enthuses, turning to look for them.

 

"Ron! Get under here," Hermione snaps.

 

"What? Where are you?"

 

Harriet uncovers one hand. Ron makes to come closer, but a dark shadow emerges suddenly from the gathering darkness and bowls him over. Harriet and Hermione watch in shock. "That is one huge dog," Harriet says. "I think I saw a dog at the first Quidditch match—and in Hogsmeade—and outside the forest—"

 

And then a smaller, lithe shadow joins the fray. It almost looks like—

 

“No, Crookshanks!” Hermione whispers. “Go away!”

 

Ron struggles as the dog seems to drag him by the ankle across the grounds, clutching Scabbers to his chest all the while. Harriet makes to duck from under the Cloak so she can catch up to them, but Hermione holds her wrist fast. Harriet cannot wriggle free.

 

"We have to do something!"

 

"It's taking him to the Whomping Willow, look!"

 

The Whomping Willow. The gnarled branches seem to increase in both speed and ferocity the closer Ron and the dog get.

 

"It could kill him," Hermione whispers frantically. But maybe not. Crookshanks streaks ahead of the dog and presses a paw to a knot on the trunk, and the whipping branches go eerily still. Then Crookshanks disappears through a gap between the roots, and the dog drags Ron after.

 

"We should find a professor," Hermione says, but she's already making to follow them. Harriet does the same, massaging her sore wrist. An earthen passage yawns before them. They both light their wands.

 

"I've seen this on the Map," Harriet admits. "Fred and George mentioned it, too. It goes somewhere in Hogsmeade."

 

"We're about to find out where," Hermione says darkly.

 

The passage emerges in a decrepit little house, every surface covered in dust. All the furnishings look as though they've had bites taken out of them. A trail through the dust winds across the floor and up a splintery flight of stairs. They tuck the Cloak away and stand upright, wands held out in trembling hands. They do not hear the telltale sounds of the dog savaging Ron. The whole place is too quiet, except for faint sobs.

 

The stairs creak. Both of them stop in surprise, then continue upward. The room at the top of the stairs is dimly lit, rendering their wandlight unnecessary. " _Knox_ ," they whisper together and step over the threshold.

 

"No!" Ron croaks, sprawled out on an ancient, badly-torn mattress. "No, go back. It's not a dog It's him—"

 

The door closes with a loud click behind them, and they turn to see—

 

Sirius Black.

 

"You!" Harriet spits, feeling something cold in her chest, and she raises her wand. She doesn't know what spell she's going to cast, but she doesn’t need one for this.

 

" _Expelliarmus_!" Her wand flies from her hand, and Black catches it in one hand, Hermione's clattering to the floor in front of him. He scoops it up. Harriet’s magic still rushes from her, the way it did when she ran from Dudley's friends. It's enough to make Black nearly lose his footing, but not much more than that.

 

"Calm down," he says. "I don't want to hurt you." His hair is wild and matted. His skin is stretched taut over the bones of his face and has taken a yellowish waxy hue.

 

Harriet ignores him and jumps at him, kicking and punching with everything she's got. He flicks Ron's wand, and she's thrown off to land in a heap by the door. She runs at him again, and somehow gets her arms wrapped about his neck. He magics her off without batting an eye once more. "All of you calm down," he croaks. His voice is hoarse with disuse. "I don't want to hurt you."

 

Harriet laughs wildly and points at Ron, who has collapsed in a heap by the bed, his face white in pain. "That was an accident, then?"

 

"I’m really sorry about that. Lie back down." They all give him dubious looks. He sighs. "If I give you back your wands, will you listen to me?"

 

The three of them glance at each other. Black tosses Harriet's and Hermione's wands back to them anyway. On catching hers, Harriet immediately points it at Black. "Well, talk," she says. "I doubt you can tell me anything I want to hear."

 

There are footsteps downstairs, and all of them go still. Crookshanks, who had been lounging on a pillow, darts out to see who it is. He returns, his fur bristling and long tail twitching. Scabbers lets out a particularly loud squeak, and Ron hushes him, rather ineffectually.

 

"We're up here!" Hermione shouts. "With Sirius Black!"

 

The footsteps speed up, and Professor Lupin steps into the room, wand in hand. "Sirius," he says. "Why—"

 

"It wasn't me," Black replies.

 

"Then it was—"

 

"Yes. He's here, Remus. The rat."

 

What follows, in Harriet's memory, is rather strange. Ron's rat is Peter Pettigrew, well-versed in faking his own death, it seems. Her dad had been an Animagus also, and entertainment at Hogwarts at the time seems to have involved running with your werewolf friend in your illegal animal forms. And nearly causing the death of a classmate, as an extra treat.

 

"Your father got cold feet, Potter. It had nothing to do with his bravery or decency." Snape, who crept in after Lupin, stands in front of Harriet and Hermione, and if he were anyone else, Harriet would think he's meaning to protect them. But, well, he'd attempted to save her life her first year, so…She'll give him the benefit of the doubt, later. Because right now she has too many questions that his apparent defense won’t answer.

 

" _Expelliarmus_ ," she shouts, and Ron and Hermione along with her. Snape is lifted off his feet and smashed into the wall, which he slides down, and then lies limply in a heap.

 

Black and Lupin look on in surprise. Black grins. "That was some good work, you three. Old Snivelus deserved it."

 

Lupin purses his lips and glances at the smoking goblet Snape had brought with him, perched precariously on the splintery bedside table. Pettigrew, meanwhile, whimpers where he is bound at their feet.

 

"Well, you should talk, Peter. Tell Harriet here why her parents are dead, eh?" Sirius nudges him with his foot. Pettigrew curls further in on himself.

 

"I want to hear the entire story," Harriet says, exhausted. "Your side. His side. Right now, I don't have any reason to believe any of you."

 

Lupin nods. "They thought I was the traitor for a time. They stopped confiding in me. You, and James…I had no idea what I'd done."

 

Black drops his eyes. “I’m sorry about that, old friend.”

 

Between the two of them, they tell Harriet about a time laden with fear and charms cast and re-cast and the grief of losing friends. Pettigrew whimpers throughout, and she can’t bear to hear it.

 

“Well, it’s your turn, Peter,” Lupin says. “Give us a good reason why you betrayed your friends.”

 

“She was so powerful,” Pettigrew sobs. “I was afraid. I thought —”

 

“Thought what? That Harriet’s life was worth your—what?—glory?” Black kicks him again.

 

“Why did she come after me at all?” Harriet asks, realizing that maybe someone will finally tell her.

 

Black and Lupin exchange glances. “She thought you were a threat to her power,” Lupin says after a silence filled only by Pettigrew’s petering gasps.

 

“But why—?”

 

“Let’s get this over with.” Black raises Snape’s wand and points it between Pettigrew’s eyes. Lupin joins him, leveling his directly at Pettigrew’s chest.

 

“No!” Harriet moves to stand in front of Pettigrew, who wraps his arms around her knees. She cringes at his touch. “If you kill him, then you won’t have any evidence that you’re really innocent. Let’s take him back to the school.”

 

They both lower their wands, Black with more hesitation. “Good point.”

 

“Kind girl, sweet girl,” Pettigrew babbles. Harriet extricates herself from his grip and moves away, brushing her rumpled robes off in disgust.

 

They make quite the convoy as they make their way back down the passageway. Snape, still unconscious, is levitated in the front. Lupin follows, with Pettigrew chained. Ron limps, his broken leg in a rough splint. Sirius, Harriet, and Hermione straggle at the back. “I’m sure you’re perfectly happy with where you are, but if you wanted to, you could come and live with me,” Black says.

 

“Do you have a house?” The Dursleys are terrible. She doesn’t trust him, but…

 

“I have no idea.” He grins. “But after I’m found innocent, we’ll figure it out, yeah?” He grins, almost boyishly hopeful. The smile smooths out the harsh edges of his waxy, skull-like complexion, and Harriet smiles back.

 

When they have all maneuvered their way out of the tunnel and into the grounds, everything takes a turn.

 

The moon has risen, and Lupin, bless him, neglected to take the potion Snape had brought with him. That’s the first disaster. The second is that with Lupin snarling and warping, Pettigrew is able to transform into his rat form and slink off. And then, if that wasn’t bad enough, the Dementors make their presence known.

 

Harriet hears her mother’s screams as the coldness falls. She feels Hermione trembling beside her and muttering under her breath— “no not Betsy, not Betsy”; and _her_ laugh; and the pain.

 

Black, who had become the hulking black dog to chase after Lupin, is human again, laid out on his back near the lakeshore. The Dementors float closer, boxing the three of them in.

 

The dreams are true. There is no way out. Harriet’s going to die here.

 

“ _Expecto patronum_!” Silver mist. “ _Expecto patronum_!” Harriet’s voice breaks on the last syllable. Her hand falls.

 

A Dementor hovers over her, reaching scabbed, rotting hands up to the edges of its hood.

 

 _It was some kind of deer, I think_ , she remembers with the last shred of hope. And so she raises her wand once more. “ _Expecto patronum_ ,” she whispers, remembering flying, remembering snatching the Snitch from under the Hufflepuff Seeker’s nose and hearing the Slytherin groans in the stands.

 

It’s something more than mist that emerges from her wand.  Bright, so bright that her eyes water, so bright that it burns the Dementors’ darkness away, leaving them nothing more than dark splotches in the moonlight. Their cloaks stir. They pull away, streaming back across the grounds to wherever they came from.

 

Harriet collapses, exhausted, and knows nothing more.

 

*

 

She wakes to Madam Pomfrey, humming a soft, jaunty tune and breaking up a large hunk of chocolate with a hammer. “Wha—” Harriet mutters, blinking. Her eyes feel gritty.

 

“Oh, good, you’re awake! Better eat this." Pomfrey proffers a large section of chocolate. Harriet props herself up on one elbow to take it.

 

“Where’s Bl—Sirius?”

 

“About to be given the Dementor’s Kiss, as he should be,” Pomfrey snaps. “Goodness, girl. What an ordeal this has been for you…” She subsides into angry mutterings. Harriet thinks she catches “Dumbledore” and “schoolgirl” and “no supervision”.

 

Harriet gnaws on her chocolate and looks around the infirmary. Ron is sound asleep, his leg propped on several pillows. Hermione is awake and is already dusting off her fingers from her own chocolate.

 

The doors to the corridor swing inward, admitting Snape, Fudge, and McGonagall. “You poor, poor girl!” Fudge says on seeing Harriet. “What an ordeal you’ve been through.”

 

“I saved all of them,” Snape reminds him. “Black and the werewolf would have killed them if not for me.”

 

“That’s not true!” Harriet rolls off the bed and stands, wavering but angry. “Black is innocent!”

 

“Confunded, I’d say,” Snape notes. Fudge nods with enough force that his bowler is dislodged from his head and lands at his feet. He sighs and bends to retrieve it.

 

Dumbledore strides in then. “These students are trying to rest. Please take this elsewhere.”

 

“Yes!” Pomfrey agrees. “All of you, please go.”

 

Snape, Fudge, and McGonagall do. Dumbledore lingers. “Might I have a moment with Miss Potter and Miss Granger?”

 

“Do what you want, Headmaster.” Pomfrey stalks off, closing her office door with a snap.

 

“Professor,” Harriet begins, “Black is innocent and—”

 

“Yes, but the evidence is quite overwhelming against him. He will receive the Dementor’s Kiss within the hour.”

 

“What is the Dementor’s Kiss, sir?” Hermione asks before Harriet can. “The book I read said they suck a person’s soul out through their mouth, but that can’t be right.”

 

Dumbledore sighs. “That’s exactly right, Miss Granger. It is a fate worse than death. Not even the guiltiest man deserves such an end.”

 

"We could use this, professor—" And Hermione is pulling something from the neck of her robes: what looks to Harriet to be a small hourglass on a golden chain.

 

"I don't believe that will help, Miss Granger," Dumbledore says kindly. "You would have nothing with which to send Sirius away."

 

"But there has to be a way to get him out!" Harriet snaps. She's pacing before she realizes it. "He's innocent! He can't be kissed—"

 

"He won't be, dear girl." Dumbledore holds out a hand, perhaps to reassure her.

 

"Don't call me that," Harriet says, impatient. "I just want him free."

 

"All right," Dumbledore smiles and winks. "You have nothing to fear."

 

"What will you do?" Hermione asks.

 

Dumbledore spreads his hands, his eyes twinkling madly. "I? I will personally do nothing. But an old friend of mine, who helped you last year, Harriet—will. Sleep well, both of you. It has been a trying night." And with that, he sweeps from the room.

 

"What did he mean?" Hermione wonders, tucking the hourglass on the chain back beneath her robes.

 

"Fawkes!" Harriet says, brightening. "His phoenix. He helped me kill the basilisk, remember?"

 

"Oh, right."

 

"What was that hourglass thing?" Harriet presses.

 

"It's a Time-Turner. It's how I've been getting to all my classes. I thought we could go back a couple hours and, well, help Sirius escape. Or even—even keep Pettigrew from getting away."

 

"You mean, 'go back' as in actually going back in _time_?" Harriet can't wrap her head around it. That sort of thing is real?

 

"I guess we didn't need it," Harriet concludes.

 

And then there is a shout outside the door, loud enough to wake Ron. "POTTER!" It sounds like Snape. And it is Snape. He comes storming through the hospital wing door, utterly enraged. "What have you done, girl?" he spits.

 

Fudge and McGonagall follow him, both of them attempting—fruitlessly—to calm him.

 

"What could Miss Potter possibly have done, Severus?" McGonagall says.

 

"Whatever is the matter, dear man," Fudge adds. "If I didn't know you were a professor and therefore unbiased toward all your students, I'd say you have a grudge on an innocent schoolgirl."

 

Snape is so shocked by this statement that he stops for a moment, catching Harriet's eye. They exchange rather disbelieving looks.

 

"Potter is no innocent schoolgirl. She's been getting into things she shouldn't since she arrived at this school three _interminable_ years ago."

 

"No longer than most years," McGonagall disagrees. "They all have the same number of days, Severus. The schoolboard would have noticed otherwise. And the students would have rioted." Hermione has the nerve to giggle.

 

"Very well put, Minerva." Dumbledore returns, casual as you please. "As for this evening, I don't believe any of these students have left their beds. Black escaped on his own initiative yet again."

 

Fudge tosses his hat from hand to hand. "Yes, well. I think I'd better assign a new Auror to the case. Dawlish’s time can be better spent."

 

"And you'll remove the dementors?" Dumbledore queries, a silver brow raised expectantly.

 

"Yes, of course. They've caused more trouble than my job's worth." He gives Harriet and Hermione apologetic smiles.

 

Lupin leaves the next day. Harriet finds him packing in his office. "Do you have to go?" She's been so wary of him for months, and yet he's always been kind, and she's learned so much.

 

"Didn't you hear?" he sighs. "The entire school knows what I am. Snape told one of his students—discreetly, I'm sure—who let it slip at breakfast this morning."

 

"Oh." Harriet scuffs her shoe. "Will I see you or Sirius again, do you think?"

 

"I'm sure you will." He smiles.

 

Good. The prospect is strange, but she finds it not unpleasant. Wait till Dudley hears she’s friends with a werewolf and has an escaped convict for a godfather.

 

Dumbledore comes in as Lupin is doing up the latches of his battered briefcase. "Your carriage is waiting outside the gates, Remus," he says.

 

"Thank you, Albus." Remus gives Harriet an awkward, one-armed embrace before walking out the door and out of sight.

 

"So, you've had quite an eventful year," Dumbledore observes. She's still holding the Marauder's Map, she realizes, and tucks it away in her pocket.

 

"Yeah."

 

He glances down at her right wrist. "And you're concealing your mark thoroughly, I see. The magic always leaves traces, for those who know how to see them."

 

"Right." Something had been niggling at the back of her mind, that she'd forgotten about until faced with this opportunity. "I've been having dreams all year," she musters. "Well, not really dreams. More like—more like—" She doesn't know how to describe that distant dread, those emotions not quite hers.

 

He looks inquisitive. "And you think they may be Voldemort?"

 

She nods. "You said there was a connection between us, that she left part of herself." She doesn't say the other thing, the one she still won't put into words.

 

"I did." Dumbledore is grave.

 

"Does this mean she's getting stronger? And that she'll come back?"

 

"It could, but they could also be only dreams." He holds her gaze, and his expression is so determinedly reassuring that for now, she believes it.

 

*

 

Harriet, Ron, and Hermione sit together on the train. Crookshanks is tucked safely away in his carrying basket, where he meows occasionally to remind them of his annoyance.

 

"I'll be back," Harriet says.

 

"Where are you going?" She doesn't answer and darts down the corridor. Bulstrode isn't hard to find. She sits in the seat nearest the door of a compartment of Slytherin first- and second-year girls. Harriet knocks. Bulstrode's head pops up, and she wrenches open the door, almost relieved. "Hello, Potter."

 

"Hi." Harriet shuffles her feet nervously. "Er, do you want to sit with us? Hermione and Ron and me," she adds at Bulstrode's quizzical frown.

 

"Er," Bulstrode says, and Harriet can't tell if she's being mocked. "Kind of you to offer, Potter, but I'm fine here." She looks back at the first- and second-years. They don't look back, too busy whispering amongst themselves.

 

“Right.” Harriet turns to go. “If you change your mind, or want to sit with us some other time —”

 

“Yeah,” Bulstrode interrupts Harriet’s rambling. “I’ll let you know.”

 

Harriet tells the Dursleys with relish that her mass-murdering godfather is on the run. She doesn’t quite get the reaction she hopes.

 

“We know all about that, girl. Now sit down and keep quiet.” Petunia doesn’t speak to her again as they drive the rest of the way back to Privet Drive.

 


End file.
